Booting .iso from USB flash drive? (Solved)

[taersh]

Hi.

My computer doesn't have a DVD drive.

How would I boot an .iso from USB flash drive to install an Operating System?
Is that possible?

Thanks...

[baldronicus]

Hi @taersh . I think it is possible, and that there might be a number of options.

If the .iso image is an isohybrid type then it might be similar to the Debian images. They indicate that you can either just use:

cp <file> <device>

or, if you are comfortable using dd, given the potential damage if you select the wrong device, then you could try:

dd if=<file> of=<device> bs=4M; sync

<file> is the name of the input image (the .iso file).
<device> would be the device matching the USB flash drive (e.g. /dev/sdb).
bs=4M tells dd to read/write in 4 megabyte chunks for better performance.
sync is to make sure that all the writes are flushed out before the command returns. However, you may want to check Rufwoof's post here: viewtopic.php?p=8305#p8305 , and take care before removing the USB (as you can probably tell I have just roughly copied elements of the Debian instructions).
Some other considerations might also be that a read-only filesystem would be created (which, if my understanding is correct, may not be an issue since you just want to use the USB flash drive for the installation (i.e. it is not the final target for the OS)). Would you want to continue to use the USB flash drive for just loading .iso files? I am probably being a bit overly paranoid, but I think some drives can be sensitive to changes and might be better used in this same way once you have set them in this way.

I think Clarity might be a strong advocate for the use of Super Grub Disk 2 (if I have the correct name). I presume, but am not sure, that it might be an alternative approach for your purposes.

Different approaches can, of course, be used if your intentions relate to Puppies/Fatdog, etc.

I don't know if the above might be of any help, or not, but I am already getting overly long, again.
Thanks.

[puddlemoon]

there is this one...
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=67235

[taersh]

Thanks @all

The dd command worked well.

Booted successfully into AV Linux MX Edition live from USB flash drive.