Klaus Knopper answers your Linux questions
Ask Klaus
Migrating a Linux OS from DVD to flash.
Klaus: I am a newbie, and I have an XPS Dell laptop in excellent condition (still rather new, about a year old) except for ONE THING – it has "buggy" Windows 8 on it. I'd like to wipe the laptop's hard drive and do a full, non-partition installation of Linux using a CD supplied by Linux Pro Magazine. However, my laptop does not have a CD/DVD drive but rather has two USB 3.0 ports.
I do have a Dell XPS Studio 9100 desktop running Windows 7 Professional, and it does have a CD drive. That having been said, can I simply insert the CD, open a My Computer window, click and drag the contents to an empty flash drive, then transfer the flash drive to my laptop where I can do a clean install of Linux?
There must be a good reason that Linux OS installations in magazines are on CDs rather than on flash drives, but I'd like to know why.
[...]
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