Installing Linux from an ISO file onto a system

If you are installing linux from E2B in MBR-mode and booting from the ISO, the install script or GUI may fail to find the ‘cdrom’. 

A typical set of questions with responses to avoid this problem would be: 

• Load CD-Rom drivers from removable media – No
• Manually select a CD-ROM driver – Yes
• Module needed for accessing cd-rom  – none
• Load CD-Rom drivers from removable media – No
• Manually select a CD-Rom driver – Yes
• Module needed for accessing CD-Rom  – none 

You will then be asked to enter the Device file for accessing the CD-ROM…

At this point, you should enter the location that E2B has mapped the ISO to (partition 4), so type: /dev/sdX4    (where X is the device letter, e.g. use /dev/sdb4 if the USB drive is the 2nd drive in the system)

If this does not work, try -t iso9660 /dev/sdX4. 

Tip: run a console and type sudo fdisk -l or lsblk -f or parted -l or df -h or ls /dev/sd* to determine the device name of the E2B USB drive. 

A previous blog post for installing Debian is here.  

Installing linux from a .imgPTN file

The linux files will usually be on the first partition of the USB drive if a FAT32 .imgPTN is used, so type: 

-t vfat /dev/sdX1 (where X is the device letter, e.g. use /dev/sdc1 if the USB drive is the 3rd drive in the system). 

If you have used two partition images (a xxxxx.imgPTN + xxxxx. files), then the source files may be located on the 3rd partition, so use -t vfat /dev/sdX3 

Tip: run a console and type sudo fdisk -l or lsblk -f or parted -l or df -h or ls /dev/sd* to determine the device name of the E2B USB drive.  

Tutorials

There are several examples of installing linux from E2B here.