User Feedback :: New user problems

I really think your problem is in the CF install. You should be able to boot directly from that thing and have a network connection.

Here's some better stuff:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....t+flash

I'm not directly booting into DSL. The CF card is a Win98 system with some room on it. I copied the DSL CD contents to the card as Windows files, then use LOADLIN (a Windows program) to load the DSL kernel. At that point, DSL re-identifies the CF card as a VFAT drive and locates the KNOPPLIX directory and file on it, then mounts it a a virtual drive. The CF card is mounted as /cdrom and DSL goes on its merry way. I think the problem is that Win98 does something to the network card and doesn't go through a hardware reset when you "Restart in MSDOS". Now I'm running LOADLIN after a hardware reset and before Windows initializes and it seems to work. My current problem is that the CF card is marked read-only and I can't keep the automatic ram-disk backup on it.

Yes, that could be a problem

Here's what I think the solution is going to be for you in the end:

Once you get that CF card unlocked, or get another one, you would do well to format it with two or three partions (if you want to keep Win/DOS on one partition) Install a bootable Windows/DOS on the first primary partion, then do a Frugal/grub install of DSL to the second partition, and choose to install GRUB in the MBR of the first partition, since the CF card is seen as a bootable hard drive. You could also use Lilo, but I just like GRUB because it's not just a Linux bootloader. GRUB or Lilo will let you set up a smooth dual boot for those two OSs on the same CF card. LOADLIN is nice for emergencies, but as you said, it loads DOS first and that can really make things confusing.???

original here.