Installing Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) From Hard Disk

This is a way to install Ubuntu without burning a installation CD. Download the alternative desktop CD you need(x86 or amd64) from the ubuntu website. Prepare a swap partition(if you haven't had one), a/some partition(s) for the new installation. A good tool to do this is GParted. Next thing to do is to download two special files for ubuntu hard disk installation: initrd.gz and vmlinuz. From x86: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/installer-i386/current/images/hd-media/ amd64: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/installer-amd64/current/images/hd-media/ Make sure the file names are initrd.gz and vmlinuz. Firefox added a .htm extension automatically on vmlinuz when I downloaded it. Place the two files as well as the iso file in a partition which is different from the one you intend to install the new system. Attention: this is very import, or the installation will fail because it tries to remove the needed files during the process. For example, you want to install ubuntu on sda8, and you store the files mentioned above in sda7, under /path/ . If you are not familiar with the partition naming convention for linux, you may want to read this first. Make sure you have a working GRUB. It could be the one you are using to boot existing operating systems, or one on a live CD. For windows users, get a grub4dos Reboot the box, when GRUB shows up to let you choose which system to boot, press c. You will find yourself in command line with a leading

grub>

For those who don't know, grub counts hard disks and partitions from 0, so the third partition on the second hard disk is (hd1,2). Type in the command as follows (under the previous path assumption):

root (hd0,6) kernel (hd0,6)/path/vmlinuz initrd (hd0,6)/path/initrd.gz boot

Then you will forward into the normal installation process. And that is the end of this story. Enjoy your Hardy Heron!