Edited:This became enough of an issue that TheeMahn revamped and adapted Unetbootin
It is now your best bet and can be used with a usb flash drive, standard external drive, or separate internal drive.The thing that makes Ultimate Edition stand out from all the other Linux distro's causes it's only downside,
Being so complete it's impossible to fit on a CD.
Of course the easy answer is to buy one of the inexpensive DVD-RW's that have recently flooded the market.
By watching such sites as bestbuy.com, newegg.com, frys.com, and my favorite, pcclub.com, it's possible to buy one for ~$35. Since that option isn't for everyone, here's a few different ways to install Ultimate Edition without the use of a DVD drive.
******************************************************************************************************First lets totally shatter your dreams of an easy work around...1) Since Ultimate Edition was written for a DVD format,
No you can't split it to span a few CD's and install it that way.
2) Because Ultimate Edition installs from a
Live format,
No you can't unpack the ISO to your hard drive and install from there.
3) Because of the installer,
No you can't delete the packages you don't want and shrink it down to CD size.
******************************************************************************************************Methods that we can use.USB Pendrive or External USB driveWith the market flooded with USB flashdrives, it's not to difficult to find a 2Gb drive for less than $20.
many shops are liquidating their older stock of these smaller drives, in favor of the new higher capacity flashdrives. Bargains to be had, and a solution to your problem.
If a friend will loan you one, even better. You should only need it for an afternoon.
1) Of course you've already downloaded & checked the MD5sum of the ISO.
2) Plug in the USB drive and make sure you have enough room on it.
3) Using one of the ISO apps, like
ISObuster for Windows, or
Gisomount for Linux, unpack the Ultimate Edition ISO and copy all of it to the USB drive.
4) Reboot and open your Bios, to ensure you are setup to boot from USB.
5) Reboot from the USB drive, let the
Live Session load completely,
Hit the
Install Icon on the desktop.
_________________________________________________________________________Net InstallWhile there are prolly several ways to install from a net, the one I would suggest is
UNetbootin.
Their website
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ has a 3.2Mb download for Linux and a 3.5Mb download for Windows. While I could explain the process here, their site has one of the best guides I have read to date, easy step by step process, with lots of pictures. Anything else I could add would be so much blah blah blah. go to their site!
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/unetbootin-linux-latest_________________________________________________________________________Piggyback InstallMy least favorite cause to much can go wrong.
Piggyback Install involves removing your hard drive, mounting it in another tower that has a DVD Drive, installing from there and switching back after the install.
With this type of install you complete the install and nothing else until it's back in it's own tower.
Drivers, upgrade, and Updates all come after it's been switched back.
this install may also require you to
reconfigure xorg to get to your desktop, remember you installed the default video drivers for another machine, they may not work on this one.
Much easier & quicker to take your tower to where the DVD drive is and borrow the DVD drive rather than swap drives.
******************************************************************************************************If you have any problems with either of these methods, start a new post in the 1.8 section (or the section for whichever Ultimate Edition you're trying to install).******************************************************************************************************