Diskless Linux

The purpose of this site is to introduce Windows users to the fun of Linux without the trauma of risking their existing system. This page gives you the basic instructions for setting up to run a Diskless Linux system, and assumes you are currently running Windows. Diskless, in this case, means it installs from the CD into RAM, and not onto your hard drive. Other ways of creating a Diskless Linux boot involve things like burning an EPROM to install on your computer, or creating a network BootP server, or otherwise are more complex than what we will cover here.

If you were looking for instructions on creating your own Diskless Distrabution of Linux, that is beyond the scope of this site. There are some great resources available online for that, you might want to start with This HOWTO.

Using Diskless Linux:

  1) Download the ISO file from your chosen distrabutions web site. An ISO file is a disk image, and will need some processing to be usable.

  2) Burn It To CD In most CD Burner programs you will find a "Burn from Disk Image" choice under the File or Tools button. Be sure to select ".iso" for the file type, and "disk at once" for the burn method.

  3) Set Boot Order in your cmos to boot from your CD before it boots from your hard drive. Many computers are already set up like this, so you may be able to skip this step.

Insert the CD you burned into your primary CD-ROM drive, power down, and reboot the system. If you did everything right, you will be looking at a Linux screen with a KDE or Gnome desktop. This is, of course, the short version. For detailed instructions, help with specific hardware, support forums or mailing lists, see the distributions web site.