Laptops :: Old Laptop - No CD or USB
I'd like to use my old Toshiba Satellite Pro 415CS for e-mail, Web surfing, and basic tasks like writing letters, etc. How can I get DSL installed? The laptop does not have a CD drive and there are no USB ports. I'm a linux newbie so I don't know how to put DSL on floppy disks. Is that possible? Is there any other way to load DSL? I have a modem card that works with the laptop - the laptop has Windows 95 on it. I tried both a wireless card and a wired card but the laptop won't recognize them without the drivers.
I want to learn more about linux and I would appreciate any advice about getting my Toshiba converted over. This laptop has worked well for me for almost 10 years and I don't want to give it up.
There's an installation guide using floppies on the DSL Wiki:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki....ired%29
Before you dive in and follow those instructions though, I'd do some research of your own, and also work out what you want.
For instance, what are your machine specifications? (RAM, Processor speed, HDD size etc?)
Do you want to keep Windows on your machine?
Do you have old hardware kicking around you can connect to your laptop (for example a parallel CD or zip drive)?
Do you know/can you find out the model and manufacturer of your PCMCIA (modem, ethernet or wireless card)?
I have just successfully installed DSL to my Toshiba 100CS which is why I thought I'd ask you to think of some of the questions I wish I'd asked myself first
:o)
It's probably not a bad idea to mention that as well as taking quite a long time to do a DSL installation via floppy disks, you are quite likely to have problems with doing a floppy installation if there is a corrupt file somewhere or something doesn't unpack properly.
Also, just because Windows won't recognise some of your hardware (eg your ethernet card) doesn't mean DSL won't. Maybe start with the wired card as there seems to be a bit better support for different manufacturers from what I've read.
As an example, I can boot from my parallel zip drive using a boot floppy and DSL 1.5, but Windows 95 and 98 both require drivers from the Iomega web site (or somewhere else).
(As an aside, I can boot DSL 2 now, but I had to add driver modules to the boot floppy disk to do it, so if you're booting from parallel drive I'd stick with DSL 1.5 until you get a little experience.)
You might also find it useful to read this tutorial from the DSL Wiki that tells you how to do a network install:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki....tall%29
Perhaps a good place to start would be by using Toms Root 'n' Boot and see if that will detect your wired card, and if so you can probably try following the instructions on the Wiki page just above.
(and if I've completely led you astray I apologise and hope that someone comes along with better suggestions soon ;o) )
Cheers and beers!
Sarah
Hi, I have nearly the same perdiciment and I followed those instructions for floppy install w/ Windows. Although it stops suddenly I figured I was to unrar the files to the C:\ and when I did, I rebooted expecting the drive to boot like a CD and run DSL, except it told me 'Invalid Boot Disk'. I booted with a 98 (no ramdrive) disk and checked the c:\ drive, everything is there. I don't see why it won't boot. Anyone know the command from dos to force it to boot?
Darn, I should have registered to edit my above post. After thinking (yeah, I forgot to do that) I realized now that the CD was on my hard drive, this was just like the poorman's install and so I made a boot disk. However, now it's asking for a run level, which it did not do on my desktop. (Could this be that I'm still running the two 50 MB partitions as stated in the Floppy boot instructions, or that I only have 16 MB of RAM to mount the ramdisk?) Any one know how to fix this, or what to type in?
Alright, status update. Turns out it was the RAM. By running the mem=16M cheat I can get it to load, to a messed up desktop. By running vga=7xx I can get it to load, but it gets to the grey screen with the X in the middle and stops there. I've tried various cheats such as: base, minimal, lowram, noicon, and all combined. I really want the GUI, but my final goal is to take this HDD copy of the disk and run a hard drive install on it. I noticed an option for a text only hard drive install, once this is done, would it allow me to run the HDD install with the GUI and everything like the original LiveCD is supposed to?
Also, for those that read earlier, the Floppy install instructions (w/ Windows) seems to stop after unraring the archive. It makes no mention of making the boot disk as I had to, nor how to do a HDD install. Is there something missing, or is the info elsewhere? Or is it understood what happens next and I'm just too much of a n00b? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. I really want to bring this laptop back from the dead of obsoleteness.
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