Which DSL 1.4 Iso

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Which DSL 1.4 Iso
started by: frenchrh

Posted by frenchrh on Aug. 18 2005,12:44

Hi All,
new to DSL and have used 1.3 and 1.4 now. I want to HD install DSL to an old notebook, which i do a floppy boot on.
I can't tell what is the difference or use of the dsl-1.4-syslinux.iso versus the dsl-1.4.iso I haven't found any info that tells me which iso to use, or why there are 2.
Thanks roger

Posted by green on Aug. 18 2005,13:21

Typically, most would use dsl-1.4.iso
However, some find that with older, cranky, hardware that is being insubordinate, the syslinux varity works. I don't know why, but I believe it is made a little different for certain, older hardware.

Posted by adssse on Aug. 18 2005,21:18

I took this from roberts post a while back.

"The syslinux version has the boot emulation of a single floppy. Therefore there are less boot time drives in the syslinux version must all fit within a single floppy sized file. The reason Knoppix and the other derivates went with isolinux, is that there is no "single floppy" size limitation. The isolinux version has many more drivers to support booting from newer computers.

So why do we have both? On some older computers the BIOS requires that emulated floppy image be there or it won't boot. That is why, we say, if you cannot boot from the isolinux version try the syslinux version. Or if you have an older computer it is probably best to start with the syslinux version."

Hope this helps.

Posted by mgmont on Aug. 19 2005,02:14

Adssse, thanks for the explanation for syslinux. I have been wondering about that myself but just havn't got around to asking.

Posted by frenchrh on Aug. 19 2005,16:29

Thanks all, that explains it for me. One of the computers I'm using DSL on is a 150 mhz 486 notebook with 48 meg of RAM. and it only boots from floppy. so I use the boot floppy. This hardwre is so old, that shouldn't matter which cd I'm using then since I'm not booting from the cd, but from floppy.

Posted by cbagger01 on Aug. 19 2005,21:32

You are correct.

when you are booting from the floppy, you are using the SYSLINUX that is installed on the floppy disk, so the cdrom bootloader does not matter.