Booting with a Linux Installer
I am interested in getting Linux, but my CD drive doesn't copy and the only downloads I've seen in the past 4 hours are put onto a CD. Do you know any way around this?

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If you are having a hardware problem, I would replace it, as you never know when you might have to boot from CD. Back to the question, you don't need a CD for Linux; you can use a Linux Installer.

The way this works is that two files are loaded on your PC's memory, the Linux kernel and a small root filesystem containing minimal filesets, that would include an installer program. Partitioning (resizing) your Windows OS may also be a part of what you need to do, depending on exactly what you're looking to accomplish. After you boot, you can then pull all your filesets to your disk from the network. You should look at either Loadlin or Grub to help you accomplish this.

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This was first published in March 2007

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