How to install without cd or floppy
Forum: HD Install
Topic: How to install without cd or floppy
started by: MarsWalker
Posted by MarsWalker on Jan. 22 2004,10:09
Hi,I have an old tablet like PC with the following specs
Pentium 120
32 Mb memory
2.1 G Disk
No cd-rom (at least booteble)
No Floppy
No Usb
Screen Max 640x480
Is there a way to install it via LoadLin ? (I know the program, but i'm VERY new at linux).
Tanxs in advance,
Raul Costa
Posted by Rapidweather on Jan. 25 2004,02:15
Most older computers have a serial port, and in MS-DOS, you can use interlnk / intersvr. You need to get a MS-DOS book to see how, it's complicated. It's possible to copy the files over from one computer to the other using a laplink cable. I did that, with Windows 95 installer. Then, I installed Windows 95 from the hard drive. Only had 8 mb ram, but things went very fast. No floppy, No cdrom at all. Your processor is very good, at 120hz, and also lots of HDD space. Another solution is one that I used with very old Macintosh machines. Take the HDD out, put it in a better machine, do your install, then put the HDD back in the older machine. I still do that with Linux, particularly with something like Debian, which is hard to set up. Once I get a nice partition going, with all the stuff I like, I just copy it to another HDD using DriveCopy, which can expand the copied partition to a new, larger partition. Linux's dd command also works, then you use
ext2resize to fit it in. Very complicated, but it works. Then take the HDD out, and and move it to it's permanent location. You often need to get into the /etc/fstab file with a linux repair floppy like tomsrtbt or bootE linux. Just adjust the fstab file to reflect the locations of the "/" and swap partitions.
Right now, I am experimenting with "knoppix toram" at boot time, and also,
"knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1"
I gotta reboot, and try out "knoppix fromhd" to see if that works after I put the DSL cd files on /dev/hda1. I tried to get it to go onto the USB drive, but it wouldn't do it on my box.
Posted by Rapidweather on Jan. 25 2004,03:15
In my earlier post, I said I would experiment with "knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1" at boot time. Well, it works, and when I rebooted into Windows 98 (There is only one partition on this computer) I found a new directory, C:\Knoppix that hadn't been there before. Apparently, the entire Damn Small Linux CD is contained there.
When the computer is rebooted, to get back into DSL using this C:\Knoppix
directory, this is what happens:
I had made a DLS boot floppy, and used that to quickly get to a boot prompt.
Then I entered:
boot: knoppix fromhd
and DSL looked for and found the contents of the CDROM in C:\Knoppix,and
booted up smoothly. It's a little quicker than accessing the files on the cd drive,
with the original DSL cd.
Now comes the problems:
I have nearly 11 MB of restore file, the backup.tar.gz on my USB memory stick.
I have it formatted as ext2 filesystem, and have to first mount it like this:
#mount /dev/sda1 -t ext2 /mnt/usbdrive
Then, I can use the fluxbox menu item for restore to restore MozillaFirebird
and the other config files. I finally got it to work, but on first try, the machine locked up.
Here's how I get it to work:
First open the rxvt terminal from the menu.
Then:
#sudo su
to get to root.
Then I decided to do a #df which shows mounted partitions.
The usb drive is not mounted yet.
I looked again at /etc/fstab to make sure where the system would
allow the memory stick to be mounted:
#cd /etc
#more fstab
Then I crossed my fingers and mounted the drive as per above.
It took. You'll know right away. Otherwise, there is a long pause, then
the terminal reports: "/dev/sda1 is not a valid block device".
Anyway, once mounted, I restored, and since I am running DSL off a
folder in my Windows 98 setup (the hard drive), there is less wait to get applications opened than with
the cdrom live cd setup. Also, you can use a boot floppy!
Then mount it as per above.
Posted by Zero on Feb. 09 2004,07:37
I installed DSL on my laptop without using floopy or cd (they are not working at the moment)Followed these simple steps:
1. made 60 mb partition with partition magic 8 (new drive d:)
2. copied the contents of DSL ISO to d:\ (extracted files from iso with WinImage)
3. extract files from "boot.img" in knoppix folder (with WinImage again), copied them to d:\
4. copy loadlin.exe 1.6c to d:\
5. made MS-DOS batch file (autoexec.bat) in d:\ with:
"loadlin.exe vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 initrd=miniroot.gz lang=en rw"
6. copy old MS-DOS command.com to drive d: to make drive bootable
7. use boot manager (like lilo, bootmagic, or other) to select d: as new boot partition when turn on the computer
I use DSL on a partition as a rescue system in case something goes wrong, but if you don't want to partition your drive, you can just follow steps 2, 3, 4, 5, and boot from DOS to use loadlin.
That's all i did (sorry about my bad english)