At the time of this writing, for i386 DSL you need at least 16 megs of ram to boot. This does not provide X windows functionality, only console (at boot run 'dsl 2' for console only). 24 megs is the recommended MINIMUM for X windows. Of course, the more ram the better, since thats where you're working, in ram.
You will find that with only the minimum of ram the most you will be able to do is use primarily the preinstalled software that comes with DSL.
---Before you begin---
Make sure that CD-ROM (or USB if you are using a USB pendrive) booting is enabled and before the hard disk in the boot order. For USB, you may have options such as "usb-zip", "usb-floppy", and "usb-hdd". Just experiment until you find the one that works for you. You may also need to enable USB keyboard support, for some boards.
If your board is not capable of booting from CD-ROM (or USB), you will need to make a Boot floppy! Just head over to one of the mirrors and grab the latest boot-x.x.x.img (or boot-usb-x.x.x.img). It should be in the "current/" directory.
In linux, you can create a boot floppy by typing
***Code Sample***
dd if=boot-X.X.X.img of=/dev/fd0
***End Code Sample***
As far as windows, may I suggest John Newbigin's RawWrite for Windows. It's available at http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm and is a lot easier to use than the original command-line based rawrite2.exe. If you are capable of booting from CD-ROM or USB, ^_^ you're good to go!
Just pop in your CD or USB and go!
Updated 05/18/2005 - moved to section 1
So, you got yet another perfect install of L99 99 99 99 .., eh?
Well I can hook you up.
The first thing you need is a way to boot your toasted HD install, so grab the GRUB floppy image from my FTP.
If you don't have a floppy drive, you can grab the grub.iso.
Yes it's only about 500k.
Yes you have to close the CD. Multisession wont work right.
Yes, it wastes the rest of the CD.
No, I dont feel sorry for you.
Aaanyways, make the floppy with the following command.
cat grubbootdisk.cat >/dev/fd0
No, you can't use dd. It doesn't work.
No, I won't make a version that will work with dd, this one works fine.
Or for the iso, you can use cdrecord, just like for any other iso.
So, not that you have your boot media, you need to boot the dead computer with the grub disk in it, and tell grub how to boot it.
Thankfully, GRUB is very simple to do this with. for example, if your DSL hd-install is on hda1, here is what you need to enter.
title DSL
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1
makeactive
boot
or, for frugal,
title DSL
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/isolinux/linux24 root=/dev/hda1
initrd /boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz
makeactive
boot
or for poorman's,
title DSL
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/isolinux/linux24 root=/dev/hda1
initrd /boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz
savedefault
Notice that GRUB does not number disks and partitions like Linux does. Linux starts counting from 1. Grub counts from 0.
So, the first disk is hd0. Then you have hd1, hd2 and so forth.
The same with partitions. The first partition is numbered "0", then 1 for the second, and so on.
The DSL kernel is at /boot/linux24, so dont change that.
For the "root=" entry, put the Linux device path there, like I did. /dev/hda1 or whatever.
After you get your DSL install up, grab the grub.dsl from my ftp and mydsl-load it.
Run the following command.
grub-install /dev/hda
No, I don't mean hda1, or whatever partition.
Yes, we are installing GRUB to the mbr.
No, this won't kill your windows. We'll get to that in a minute.
The last step is to set up the menu.list for grub, unless you like typing in the commands to boot a partition manually. I know I do. ^_^
The extension puts an empty menu.lst in /boot/grub, so you have to set it up manually. But I put decent instructions in comments in it, so it shouldnt be too hard.
Just remember to do chainloader +1 for windows booting.
Something like this, if windows is at hda2.
title Windows
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot
Q) I'm from and my keyboard is messed up! How can I fix it?!
A) Easy! At the "boot: " prompt type in "dsl lang=##" (without the quotes).
Just replace "##" with the 2 letter code for your language.
Known languages that work are:
"es" - Spanish
"fr" - French
"de" - German
"fi" - Finnish
These may work, but have not been "officially" tested. The keymaps are in /usr/share/keymaps/. If something has a "(?)" beside it, it means I wasn't really sure what the language was, so I made an educated guess. If I'm wrong, email me and I'll fix it. If it has a "???" beside it, even Google couldn't help me. If you know what language it is, go ahead and fix it.
"bg" - Bulgarian (?)
"br" - Brazillian Portuguese (?)
"by" - ???
"cf" - ???
"cz" - Czech
"dk" - Danish
"et" - ???
"gr" - Greek
"hu101" - 101 key Hungarian
"il" - Hebrew (?)
"it" - Italian
"it2" - alternate Italian
"jp106" - 106 key Japanese
"lt" - Lithuanian
"lv-latin4" - Latgalian (Latin keyboard layout 4) (?)
"lv-latin7" - Latgalian (Latin keyboard layout 7) (?)
"mk" - ???
"nl" - Dutch
"no" - ???
"pl" - Polish (?)
"pt" - Portuguese (?)
"ro" - Romanian
"ru" - Russian
"sk" - Slavik (?)
"tralt" - Tralt
"trq" - ???
"ua" - ???
"uaw" - ???
"uk" - UK keyboard support