Public bug reported: I'm shocked that I couldn't already find a bug for this. Please re- direct me if I'm just search challenged tonight.
I love LiveCDs (see https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/40062). But I also have old junky laptops that will run Ubuntu, but which have busted CD players. I've also had issues on machines with enough RAM to *run* Ubuntu once installed (barely) but not enough to run the LiveCD *and* run the installer's partitioner at the same time. I'd love a clear, supported ability to do floppy/network Ubuntu installs. I've seen some of the community work-arounds, and they aren't pretty. But I do this kind of thing with Debian all the time. If fact, if I have a choice between floppy and CD installs for Debian, I'll do the floppy, since with my apt-proxy I get to a stable, updated system much faster. So, since Debian can do it, why can't Ubuntu??? Actually, it already can, mostly. I just installed Ubuntu 6.06 on a Inspiron with a broken CD player using Debian Sarge install floppies (and a PCMCIA NIC). This worked great, and really makes me think it would be trivial to get Ubuntu to do it too. I did a very minimal Debian install, then at first reboot manually pointed the package repo at Ubuntu, not Debian, and installed a minimal Ubuntu. I booted that, and did various apt-gets to build a system [1]. This worked, but not 100% cleanly. There were left-over Debian packages, and the apt-gets missed some things that were not "depended on" by anything else yet that were necessary (e.g. linux- restricted-modules-common linux-restricted-modules-686). So my actual method isn't much better than the other community solutions (long and ugly). But, my method could be made official and almost as easy as a "real" GUI Ubuntu install almost trivially. (OK, I really don't know how the Debian floppy installer works, so I am assuming it's easy to tweak to Ubuntu because a) Ubuntu is already based on Debian and b) because it's already *SO* close!) All the fantastic Ubuntu hardware detection could be an issue, but in my case everything Just Worked (once I installed the missing modules, grrrrrrr). Obviously, this install method would also make it easier for some environments to pump out lots of custom Ubuntu installs without having to slipstream a CD image, which has obvious advantages. And while I actually used a for-real floppy drive, I'd wildly guess that the floppy images could be stored and booted otherwise, maybe from USB. [1] I have documented my installation method, but it is not publishable quality yet. I *hope* to clean it up and post it in a HOWTO forum RSN. I am happy to share with any Ubuntu dev. Who wants to take a stab at this… ** Affects: Ubuntu Importance: Untriaged Status: Unconfirmed ** Tags added: floppy installer -- Ubuntu should have a floppy/network install option like Debian https://launchpad.net/bugs/57863 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
