Make a USB Boot CD for Xubuntu

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Much like a USB Boot CD that can be used to boot Ubuntu 8.10 from USB, this USB Boot CD can be used to boot a prepared Xubuntu 8.10 USB flash drive on computers containing a system BIOS that does not natively support booting from USB. The boot CD works by loading the initrd and vmlinuz kernel from the CD. Once the necessary USB drivers have been loaded, the boot CD proceeds to locate and load the filesystem from the USB flash drive.

Could also be used to Boot Xubuntu from a USB Flashdrive on Apple Mac, Macbook or, Macbook Pro.

Please Note: The USB Boot CD should work on most systems. However, it should be noted that this USB Boot CD may not work on some really old computers with only USB 1.0 hardware support.

Can be used to boot flash drives created using the USB Xubuntu install via CD or Xubuntu USB install via Windows tutorials.

If you wish, you can skip the tutorial and download the USBCDX810.iso we created using this same process.

USB Boot CD for Xubuntu 8.10 build essentials:

  • PC with a BIOS that does not support booting from USB
  • Working CD Drive and USB Port
  • Xubuntu 8.10 CD
  • USB flash drive with Xubuntu 8.10 preinstalled

How to Create a CD to Boot Xubuntu from USB

The following process will enable you to create a Boot CD that can be used to Boot Xubuntu 8.10 from a USB Flash Drive on systems that do not natively support booting from USB.

  1. Insert the Xubuntu 8.10 Live CD and restart your computer, booting from the CD
  2. Open a Terminal and type mkdir -p usbcdx/boot/grub
  3. Type cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito usbcdx/boot/grub
  4. Type mousepad usbcdx/boot/grub/menu.lst
  5. Add the following information to your menu.lst file and save it.

    6. title Run Xubuntu 8.10 from USB DISK
    root (cd)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/xubuntu.seed boot=casper noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true persistent quiet splash
    initrd /boot/initrd.gz
    boot

  6. Type cp /cdrom/casper/initrd.gz ~/usbcdx/boot
  7. Type cp /cdrom/casper/vmlinuz ~/usbcdx/boot
  8. Type mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/stage2_eltorito -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o ubcdx810.iso usbcdx
  9. Burn the usbcdx810.iso to a CD

Booting from the USB Boot CD

  1. Shutdown your computer
  2. Insert the USB Boot CD and your Xubuntu 8.10 flash drive
  3. Set your BIOS or Startup Menu to boot from CD
  4. Start your computer (booting from the CD)

If all goes well, the CD should load the necessary USB drivers, detect your
USB device and proceed to boot Xubuntu 8.10 from the flash drive.

*Xubuntu is a product of Canonical Ltd


                            

Posted November 16th, 2008 at 6:26 pm under: Boot from USB using a Boot CD

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