[tlug] Installing Linux without a CD or DVD drive

[Dave M G <dave@example.com>]

TLUG,

First, happy holidays to all! Thanks for a great year of support, help, 
and community, and I hope to be able to contribute positively to the 
group more in 2008!

Now... my question...

I'm thinking of getting a really cheap laptop for portable word 
processing. I was looking at some decent used Pentium 3 computers in 
Akihabara this morning that go for around 20,000 yen. They're really 
small and light, which the most desired feature.

At that price and size, they don't come with any CD or DVD drive. Which 
is fine for my day to day usage requirements.

But, I've never installed Linux - or any other OS - except by CD or DVD.

(Well, way back in the day I used floppies, but that's just a technicality.)

All other issues considered, I'd still like to get one of these things. 
Which means I would need to figure out how to install Ubuntu without a 
CD/DVD drive.

The laptops I'm considering do have USB input, so if I could find 
someone who had an external USB CD/DVD drive, then that would do it.

But then I thought it might be possible to install from a USB drive. One 
of those small ones that seem to be called "thumb" drives, "stick" 
drives, or "keychain" drives, depending on who you talk to.

I'm going to probably buy a 1GB or so USB drive anyway, so this route, 
if possible, would probably be the best, if it works.

And that brings me to here. When I got back this afternoon, I hit the 
Google trail and found a zillion sites where one could install Linux (of 
whatever flavour) on the USB drive and then use that to have a portable 
Linux install that one could use on various computers.

But I don't want to install *to* a USB drive, I want to install *from* a 
USB drive. Perhaps I'm not seeing the instructions amongst all the 
noise, but for whatever reason, I couldn't find it.

In any case, bottom line, my intention is to permanently install Ubuntu 
onto a laptop that has no CD/DVD drive. I think the most likely way is 
with a USB drive, but I'm open to anything. What is the best way to do that?

Thank you for any advice.

--
Dave M G
http://www.tlug.jp/wiki/User:Dave_M_G