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In order to test some stuff, I needed to install Xubuntu in one of the |
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hard drive partitions on a 5-6 year old generic tower machine. |
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|
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I downloaded the Xubuntu 14.04.1 AMD64 ISO, which at 935MB no longer |
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fits on a single CD. So I burned a DVD+R. It failed to boot. The |
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drive in which I burned it is rather suspect, so I tossed the DVD and |
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changed tack: I've got a couple 4+ GB USB flash drives laying on my |
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desk, so I decided to try making a bootable USB flash drive. |
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|
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Google pointed me to various sets of instructions which seemed to |
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either involve either |
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|
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1) Mounting the ISO image, copying files around, downloading various |
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other bits, and just a lot of faffing around in general. |
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|
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2) Installing something like unetbootin (which presumably automates |
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all the faffing) which then requires installing a bunch of other |
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stuff (including Qt). |
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|
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But, I found one blog post which said that just using 'dd' to copy an |
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ISO image to the USB flash drive usually "just worked". |
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|
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So I dd'ed the 935MB ISO image to the flash drive and plugged it into |
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the target machine, hit the reset button, hit F11 for the boot menu, |
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picked the USB flash drive from the list, and Bob's your uncle: it |
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booted and installed just fine. |
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|
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What I'm wondering is why all the blog posts, wiki pages, and HOWTOs |
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showing either the complicated command-line procedures or |
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dependency-heavy "USB creator" apps? (Many of them quite recent.) |
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|
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Did this work because the Xubuntu people do something special when |
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creating the ISO image? (If so, then they have my thanks!) |
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|
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Is what I thought was a plain vanilla ASROCK/Nvidia AM2+ motherboard |
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BIOS something special? (It's an AMI BIOS dated 2009, so it's nothing |
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particularly recent.) |
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|
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-- |
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Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! Let me do my TRIBUTE |
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at to FISHNET STOCKINGS ... |
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gmail.com |