TLDR version
Can I install Linux by booting the Live CD and then doing a dd if=/ of=/dev/hda?
Can I somehow install Linux by copying files off of the installing ISO directly onto the harddisk drive?
It seems that traditional ways of installing aren't working for me, what are my alternatives
Background
I recently purchased a Motion Computing M1400 machine and I'm having a hard time installing an OS on it.
I've tried the following OSes:
Puppy Linux - Live Boots, but isn't the OS I want
Crunchbang - I get installation boot options, but neither the livecd or installation commands work
Debian - I can't get to the boot option screen
Android on x86 - I can live boot, but can't install.
Ideally my *goal is to dual-boot Crunchbang and Android, but I can settle for Debian. (Even a RH based OS)
The machine doesn't have a CD or Floppy (without firewire), but it boots from USB.
I've tried putting the install ISO on the USB with varying success, the closest I've gotten so far is using unetbootin to do the dirty work as other methods (cp .iso dev/sda1) haven't been as fruitful.
I've tried installing it via a different laptop but the hard drives are not of the same interface so I have to plug the hard disk through the usb. For some reason I haven't been able to install it that way.
Can I install Linux by booting the Live CD and then doing a dd if=/ of=/dev/hda?
Can I somehow install Linux by copying files off of the installing ISO directly onto the harddisk drive?
It seems that traditional ways of installing aren't working for me, what are my alternatives
UPDATE
I've tried installing a large variety of Distributions and perhaps my results may interest others. Sometimes burning them to CDs worked better than usb, but most of the time usb worked when it worked.
Successfully booted, Pen works out of the box:
bodhi 2.4.0
Knuppix 7.2.0
Successfully booted (sometimes vga port):
JoliOS 1.2
CorePlus
Lucid Puppy 528.005
Slacko Puppy 5.6
Momonga 7
Gentoo Minimal Install (No Gui)
Unsuccessful:
Haiku Alpha 4
Centos 6.4
Otakus 2
MidnightBSD
Berry 1.17
Debian 7.1.0
Kubuntu 12.04
Ubuntu 12.04/13.04
Seawolf (Redhat) 7.1
Fedora 19
Artistx 1.5
Linux Mint 201303 (DEB)
OpenSuse 12.3 Live DVD
Arch Linux 2013.10.01