Why can't you rely on installing ftom USB. It is many years, and many baremetal installs, since I had had access to a DVD drive. Curious about what kind of issues you are having with installing ftom USB
I can 2nd that. Maybe its just that I buy low quality USB drives, but I sometimes have go through the process a few times with different drives before getting one that actually works.
Its a lot less hit or miss with Windows ISOs, but Linux ones can be VERY finicky.
People downvoted me but this was kind of my point. USB drives do usually work, but I still have experiences however rare, that a particular server and USB combination is not working so when there are situations that I have to travel somewhere and be 100% certain that an OS install is going to be possible I still feel the need to have an optical drive.