Booting .iso from Grub

[Snowhog]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/ISOBoot

Ubuntu ISOs are designed to allow booting directly from the hard drive using GRUB 2 and eliminates the need for burning a CD/DVD. This feature permits the user to boot and use the "Try Ubuntu" feature of the Ubuntu installation CD as well as to install Ubuntu directly from an ISO on the hard drive. In addition to Ubuntu ISOs, many other Linux distributions as well as popular rescue CDs can be booted directly from an ISO file.

Can be useful and save the effort of burning a USB stick.

[oshunluvr]

Good article.

Here's how I do it:
I created this entry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom:

menuentry 'Latest ISO download' --class iso {
set isofile="/iso/latest.iso"
loopback loop (hd1,2)$isofile
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile noprompt noeject
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

Then when I want to boot directly to an ISO, I copy it to the /iso folder and rename it to latest.iso, then reboot and select it from GRUB.

This works with every *buntu flavor and quite a few other ISOs.

[dejjanku]

Good to know.
Is it possible to locate related iso file on non linux partition? (ntfs, etc. ...)

[jlittle]

Can be useful and save the effort of burning a USB stick.

We've discussed it before on KFN. Note that the linux and initrd lines can vary with the OS; the ones given are for *buntus. As well as saving all that "burning" or copying to USB, booting an iso from an SSD can be faster.

If one adds "toram" to the linux line, after booting the iso (taking a few more seconds) one can unmount the device the iso is on, then install back on to it, at least with ubiquity.

I use some grub script to give a menu of isos found in an iso directory.

[jlittle]

Is it possible to locate related iso file on non linux partition? (ntfs, etc. ...)

If grub can read it, it can work. It may be necessary to "insmod" the grub module for the file system, for example insmod ntfs, if the main grub.cfg has not already done so.