Hi,
On Tue, Aug 27, 2024 at 09:42:22PM -0400, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On powerup I see messages referring to PXE, which if I remember
> correctly involves booting off a network connection?
Yes. You can almost certainly disable this feature in the BIOS
settings if it bothers you. Typically you only see it when the BIOS
(or UEFI firmware) sees no other bootable media.
> The thing is, this machine doesn't have a DVD drive. What it
> does have is a couple of USB ports (two different color connectors
> so I assume different speeds?).
Sometimes conventions aren't followed, but here is a hint:
https://www.usbmemorydirect.com/blog/usb-port-colors/
> I am also assuming that simply
> putting an iso file on to a USB stick won't quite do it.
That is the correct way to deal with Debian's ISO images. Whether
your BIOS supports booting from that is a bit hit and miss. It's
worth a try as it works a lot of the time.
Also look in the BIOS settings for boot order priority. If that
mentions USB as an option then it's very likely to work.
> No idea
> about how to implement anything to do with PXE, though I can
> probably safely assume that I have what I need on the LAN here.
Yes; if the machine tried to do PXE then you don't need anything
fancy elsewhere other than another networked machine that can serve
DHCP and TFTP, which Linux does just fine. It's a bit of an involved
process though so unless setting up PXE booting is desirable you may
want to find another way.
> Any thoughts on how best to deal with this?
I'd try the USB media approach as it'll probably work. If the laptop
was never designed to have an internal optical media drive then it
was probably also designed to boot off of USB for installation
purposes.
If that doesn't work, would it be possible to take the HDD/SSD out
of the laptop and put it in another machine? You could then install
onto that and put it back in the laptop afterwards.
Thanks,
Andy
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