Network install without DVD

[philiprbrenan]

Is it possible to install Kubuntu 20 directly over the Internet without using either a usb stick or DVD drive?

[claydoh]

If the computer supports PXE boot, and you have servers on your local network that provide the needed boot and install files, etc, one can install Ubuntu Server (20.04) and then install the package kubuntu-desktop to 'convert' the headless install to Kubuntu.

https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/install/netboot-amd64

Alternative methods might be:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In..._installations
particularly
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...llFromInternet

But these are probably outdated (2016), and do presume you already have a Linux install on the computer, and its Grub can be used to boot either an iso image on a drive, or the boot files/iso for a network install

I can't think of any other way to dom this.
Maybe some extra details on the system you are wanting to install Linux on might help point to useful solutions, outside of taking the drive out and connecting it to a different computer and installing to it from there.

[jlittle]

Is it possible to install Kubuntu 20 directly over the Internet without using either a usb stick or DVD drive?

I presume you mean from scratch, nothing on the target machine. It's a good idea, it will come, but we're waiting for consumer UEFI implementations to support it. (Server boards are usually set up with things like the "Intel Management Engine" and they can boot and install from anywhere, say from some dark source, without anyone even knowing it's happening.)

If you don't mean from scratch, and that some OS is already on the computer, then yes, I do it all the time with grub. That OS can download an iso, and then reboot to grub to do an isoboot. A six line grub "menuentry" and you're away. Much, much quicker than the error-prone burning discs or writing USB sticks. Just ask if you'd like the grub stanza. I don't know other methods using other boot loaders, but I'd be surprised if there aren't any., It's quite possible even without a reboot using kexec, in principle.