From MEPIS Documentation Wiki

Contents 1 Requirements 2 Get MEPIS ISO 3 Configure System 4 Configure GRUB 5 Reboot 6 Possible Gotchas

These are basic instructions to boot MEPIS from an ISO rather than from CD or DVD.

(You get speed and you do not have to burn CD. If you want just the speed but do not mind burning and using a CD then using just the fromiso cheatcode is much simpler.)

Requirements

• A functioning GRUB (on a floppy, a HD-Installation or the Live-CD)
• A MEPIS ISO Image
• A partition that will not be used during installation

Get MEPIS ISO

Use the Get MEPIS page to obtain the latest MEPIS ISO and download the image to your Desktop.

Configure System

1. From Konqueror, right-mouse-click on the ISO and go to Actions->Mount (as Root) iso to /mnt/temp
   • Type in your root password when you are prompted for it
2. Click on K->System->File System->File Manager - Super User Mode
   • You will again be prompted for the root password in a pop-up window
3. Navigate to /mnt/temp
4. Copy the mepis directory to the root directory, /, of whatever partition that you would like. This can even be a windows partition if you so choose. [This takes a while, since you're copying about 600-MBs of data into the partition.]
5. Navigate back into the /mnt/temp/boot directory.
6. Copy both the files vmlinuz and initrd.gz into the /mepis directory that you just copied into the partition.

Configure GRUB

In order to make this work, you will need a entry in your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to boot the image.

1. Go to K->System->File System->File Manager - Super User Mode
   • Type in your root password when you are prompted for it
2. In the address bar, type in:

   /boot/grub 

3. Click on the menu.lst file to edit it
4. Add the following section to the bottom of the menu.lst file:

title MEPIS ISO at hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/mepis/vmlinuz init=/etc/init apm=power-off vga=791 quiet
initrd (hd0,0)/mepis/initrd.gz

Alternatively, one could use the fromiso cheat code (in this case there is no need to copy MEPIS directory to the root directory), example of GRUB entry:

title MEPIS ISO at hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/mepis/vmlinuz apm=power-off vga=791 quiet fromiso=/mepis/SimplyMEPIS-CD_7.0-rel_32.iso 
initrd (hd0,0)/mepis/initrd.gz
boot

That (hd0,0) after the kernel and initrd entries are partition names, see Editing the GRUB menu.

Reboot

After rebooting your should see your entry in GRUB. Highlight the new entry and boot from the ISO.

Possible Gotchas

1. My monitor is not detected when I boot and I get a blank screen
   • Since you are not being prompted to select your screen resolution it may not be properly detected. Add the xres parameter to your kernel options. The default is:

     xres=1024x768

2. During the install the keyboard and and localization is not properly set
   • Again since the normal parameters are not being passed from grub this must be done manually by adding the localization parameter to your kernel options. The default is:

     en