HOWTO boot LiveCDs from the Internet
With http based filesystem and virtualization, you can boot any livecd image you want strait from the mirror. You don't have to wait for those 700MB (or more in case of a LiveDVD), and you don't have to burn the anything. Simply mount the mirror and launch your favourite vitualization engine!
The filesystem that we are using is httpfs - a fuse based filesystem that allows you to mount remote files and use them as if they were local. This is especially cool for iso, squash, cloop or any other image file. This HOWTO is based on the guide on http://httpfs.sourceforge.net/net_boot.htm
Virtualized Boot
You can mount a livecd iso and boot it with qemu, vmplayer or any other virtualization engine that supports isos. This is a very fast way to try livecds without completely downloading them. In the future we would like Vamos users to be able to mount the http image and to work with it peramently and not only for tests.
OK so let’s see how we can boot a remote iso:
Install httpfs
- Find an iso you like – you probably want to test livecds that let you run applications and not just to install it on the hard disk. This time we will go with Ubuntu Feisty Alpha 2.
- Mount this iso:
mkdir ~/feisty mkdir ~/feisty/http sudo httpfs http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/cdimage/releases/feisty/herd-2/feisty-desktop-i386.iso ~/feisty/http
if the mount fails because of a problem with /dev/fuse, run “modprobe fuse”
With qemu
sudo qemu -cdrom ~/feisty/http/feisty-desktop-i386.iso -boot d
With vmplayer
mkdir ~/feisty/vm cd ~/feisty/vm
wget https://files.bountysource.com/file/download/521/livecd.vmx
Edit the ide1:0.fileName entry so it points to the iso:
... ide1:0.fileName = "~/feisty/http/feisty-desktop-i386.iso"
sudo vmplayer ~/feisty/vm/livecd.vmx
umount...
sudo fusermount -u ~/feisty/http
Windows Internet Boot
You can also boot GNU/Linux from a windows machine. It does not work smoothly but here's a quick HOWTO:
Install qemu - http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~qemu-win/
Install kqemu (optional but recommeneded) - http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/download.html. You will need 7zip on windows to extract the tar.gz file.
Install httpdisk - http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/
- Read httpdisk instructions and mount the iso url with the /cd param
Execute qemu.exe -L . -cdrom //./<mounted_drive_letter>:
Go make a sandwitch, it is going to take a while
For me it worked very slowly, maybe with vmplayer or another engine it works better.