Open Question: Install Linux without Live Media?
This post was about installing Linux on a friend's laptop which can't boot from a USB stick and whose DVD drive is broken.
Reader Azmo suggested, "I have had really good experiences with gPXE and Fedora (boot.fedoraproject.org) lately. Just a thought if that laptop chokes on 'big' USB iso things, but might be able to work with the small bfo image."
Commenter T Beermonster had quite a few suggestions, but one which I may try out is this one: "You could use a virtual machine to get things set up as you like and then dd the virtual HDD to the laptop HDD. It's easier if you don't use a dynamic virtual disk just a fixed size one that is the same size as or smaller than the eventual target HDD (remember dd will copy everything, even empty space, so the smaller the VHD the quicker the copy - you can always grow to fill unused space on the real HDD later)."
General Disillusionment with Ubuntu
Reader Arup is perfectly fine with the current state of affairs, and I respect that: "No heavy handedness here, they are just establishing a universal and global brand name for a linux based distro which was the need for a long time."
Commenter adamwill had this to say about the review process: " It kind of depends what's meant by 'review'. Most distros have some kind of 'review' process for software being added to the distribution, but it's the details that are important: what exactly is the review process meant to achieve, how is it implemented, who is in charge of it, how open is it, and so on."
Apple's Restricted APT
Reader Van' sums up the general consensus online with this: "NEWSFLASH: Bears [excrete] in woods."
Thanks to everyone who posted comments on this week's posts, and as always, please keep them coming. Also, as always, if you like the content, please subscribe!
