Re: booting live cd images

[Goh Lip]

On 06/05/2010 03:32 AM, Piscium wrote:
> Many Linux distros have live CD images available for download. Once downloaded 
> the usual procedure is either to burn a CD with it, or else use a live usb 
> creator to put the image on a pen drive. With both options the result is a way 
> to boot the downloaded distro.
>
> I wonder if there is a third way to boot. Would it be possible to have Grub 
> boot the downloaded file (.iso) on the hard disk directly?

Yes, grub2 allows booting up using looping. Try googling for grub2 + loop.

> If so, could it be done by modifying the grub configuration file (by editing 
> 40_custom)? Or by rebooting the PC, putting grub into interactive mode and 
> entering the necessary commands?
>
> The solution might involve the loopback command, but I don't know how to use 
> it. And might involve chainloading to the bootloader on the image (isolinux).

No, it's not exactly chainload.
> Any ideas?


There are different ways distros use these methods, casper, live, etc. 
Best check out their  FAQ page to see which method they use. What works 
on one may not work on another. You can actually see this by mounting 
the iso and checking their boot. (mount -o loop xxxxxxxx.iso /mnt/xxx)

Regards - Goh Lip