Install from a floppy?Forum: Other Help Topics Topic: Install from a floppy? started by: mjdc76 Posted by mjdc76 on June 30 2005,14:07
Cleaning out my apartment, I found my old 486-based laptop from college. It's quite old--80MB hard drive, 8 MB of ram, that sort of thing. It currently has Windows 3.1 installed on it, which is essentially useless.I was toying with the idea of trying to install something like Damn Small Linux on this, so I could play with it and maybe use it as a console device. In any case, it would allow me to change this old hunk of plastic from "useless relic" into "possibly interesting toy". Here's the tricky bit. The only removable media available is the floppy drive. I also have an ethernet connection via an aincent Xircom adapter that plugs into the parallel port (and is powered through the PS/2 external mouse port). And, of course, no USB or anything like that. There is also a lone serial port to play with. How would I go about getting Linux on to such a beast? I know it used to be possible to put a linux kernel onto a flopppy that would uncompress itself into memory, but that was many moons ago. I can't really do a network install unless there's a way to do that under Windows 3.1. It would theoretically be possible to attempt to find/buy an external CD drive that would connect via parallel or serial ports, but that involves spending money, which I'm not interested in. I do have both a relatively modern Windows 2000 desktop and a Fedora Core 3 linux box available if either would be helpful. Both have floppy drives if creating one seems useful. Ideas/Suggestions/Creative Ideas welcome! Posted by cbagger01 on July 02 2005,06:09
8MB of ram is not enough.Try something like "Basic Linux" or "Deli Linux" for such a machine. |