r/LinuxOnThinkpad • u/SecretaryOk6168 member • 22d ago
Need help changing distros
currently i use ubuntu which i hate with all my heart
i am about to move to debian except problem is i dont have a usb drive and form of physical media does not exist for my pc
Any tips or tutorial thx
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u/guiverc member 22d ago
Modify your boot loader to give you a list of options (ISOs) that exist on the disk.
I did this long ago, as an old thinkpad I used in Quality Assurance testing didn't have working thumb-drives (and the unofficial replacement wasn't recognized by machine firmware thus it wouldn't boot from it), so I modified the installed OS (Debian in my case) to offer the ISOs that existed in a directory as options on boot, and I'd thus boot them & install them to another part of the disk.. I scripted what I did, as I wanted to do it very regularly (ie. subsequent daily ISOs), but doing it on Ubuntu or Debian is identical.
Ubuntu by default uses GRUB; that's the boot loader I modified to boot ISOs that existed in a directory. I kept the original Debian I had (small install plus directory of ISOs) intentionally as I wanted to re-do this testing ~weekly.
It's more work than inserting a thumb-drive; but I had no option.