Installing Ubuntu Or Fedora From A Windows Or Linux System With UNetbootin

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Submitted by falko (Contact Author) (Forums) on Thu, 2007-10-04 15:56. :: Fedora | Ubuntu | Desktop

Installing Ubuntu Or Fedora From A Windows Or Linux System With UNetbootin

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
Last edited 09/29/2007

UNetbootin is a tool that allows you to install various Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSuSE, Debian, ArchLinux) from a Windows or a Linux desktop over the internet (i.e., you don't need to burn the Ubuntu, Fedora, ... CDs). Unlike the Ubuntu installation with Wubi, real partitions are created during the installation. In the end, you have a dual-boot system (Linux/Windows or Linux/Linux).

This document comes without warranty of any kind! I want to say that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

 

1 Preliminary Note

In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to install Ubuntu Feisty Fawn and Fedora 7 from a Windows XP machine. The other supported distributions can be installed the same way. Of course, you can as well install the supported distributions from a Linux system instead of Windows - all UNetbootin packages are available as .exe (Windows), .deb (Debian/Ubuntu), and .rpm (Fedora, CentOS, OpenSuSE, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, ...) files - just install the appropriate package for your system.

UNetbootin is very similar to the Debian-Installer Loader. The difference is that UNetbootin supports multiple distributions and can be used on Windows and Linux systems.

 

2 Installing Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

Visit http://lubi.sourceforge.net/unetbootin.html and click on the Download link. On the SourceForge download page, you can find packages for all Linux distributions that you can install with UNetbootin. Select the package for Ubuntu 7.04:

On the next page, you can find the UNetbootin package for Ubuntu 7.04 for various systems (.deb for Debian/Ubuntu, .rpm for Fedora, CentOS, OpenSuSE, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, .exe for Windows, and .sh for Linux distributions that don't use .deb or .rpm. Select the .exe package and download it to your hard drive:

Afterwards, open the Windows Explorer and go to the folder where you've stored UNetbootin. Click on it to start the UNetbootin installation:

After the installation, you're asked to reboot the system. Do so now:

When the system reboots, you should now see the Windows boot menu. Select Ubuntu and press ENTER:


Copyright © 2007 Falko Timme
All Rights Reserved.
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UNetbootin's homepage has changed, use the new version instead
Submitted by kaidron (registered user) on Sat, 2008-07-05 06:12.

UNetbootin's homepage has moved to http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ please update the link; the new version has several useful features such as a proper GUI and liveUSB installation source.

 Also, note that the new version can install using the LiveCD ISO file so it is no longer necessary to do net-installations. Here is a screenshot of the new version:

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Problems using UNetBootIn in win98
Submitted by topkapi (registered user) on Wed, 2007-12-12 18:32.
Really great stuff! :-)
But I first got severe problems! After resolving them, I now want to spread my experiences trying to get UBUNTU-Linux as an additional OS beneath my old WIN98 - via WUBI and UNetBootIn:

First I tried WUBI. Installing was easy, rebooting automatically opend the choice-menu - but UBUNTU didnt load at all: "No RAID disks", I received as error message, and "can't access tty" was the end of "falling back to a shell" :(

Because none of the threads to be found in the net could help me, I finally decided to switch to UNetBootIn.

Again, it seemed to work properly. But when UNetBootIn was rebooting the system, there was NO new menu offering a choice between WIN and UBUNTU, and the system fell back into WINDOWS, asking me if I "really wish to uninstall UNetBootIn"!?! :(
But why??? Everything seemed to be okay, "grub.exe" was on right place in C:\, "grldr" too... 8-o

After several tries (all the suggestions in the forums didn't work) and hard thinking ;-) I finally solved this UNetBootIn-problem! :-)

So, WIN98-users (?!) with similar problems using UNetBootIn, try this:
1. in WINDOWS, open your CONFIG.SYS (evt. deactivate read-only-status!) in a text-editor

2. merge the following lines:
[menu]
menucolor=15,0
menuitem=windows,Windows
menuitem=grldrUNetBootIn,UNetBootIn
menudefault=windows,30
[grldrUNetBootIn]
device=grub.exe
[windows]

3. safe CONFIG.SYS

4. start UNetBootIn, let it install and reboot your system

5. NOW you'll get the NEW MENU! :-) Choose UBUNTU and let it install

6. In UBUNTU open your good old WIN98-CONFIG.SYS and erase the lines merged above

That's it!
Good luck to you all!


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Great Stuff.Thanks for
Submitted by svenkatesan (registered user) on Wed, 2007-10-17 01:48.
Great Stuff.Thanks for sharing.
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UNetbootin Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10
Submitted by kaidron (registered user) on Mon, 2007-11-12 07:30.

UNetbootin versions capable of installing Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 have been out for a while, perhaps this guide should be updated...

 For the note, as indicated in http://lubi.sourceforge.net/unetbootin.html the new server and folder options to enter for Fedora 8 are:

If installing Fedora, select "FTP" as the installation source, and for the server, specify:

download.fedora.redhat.com
and for the folder, if using the standard (32-bit) version, specify:
pub/fedora/linux/releases/8/Fedora/i386/os
or if using the 64-bit version, specify:
pub/fedora/linux/releases/8/Fedora/x86_64/os
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