Re: How to install linux from floppy, without a bootable cdrom drive?



On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 07:36:46 -0700, two_wheeled wrote:

Thanks! I'll try that.
Are there any distributions that still support a boot floppy?

Floppy based systems are becoming very rare with modern hardware and with
user expectations. Users don't expect their system to remain crippled due
to restriction imposed at boot. The 2.6.x kernel makes it very difficult
to stay within a 1.4M limit for floppies, even with modular kernels. The
user expects a fully functional system, even on old hardware. The high
capacities provided by optical media (DVD/CD) and flash memory make using
a floppy seem outdated. Your case (old hardware without BIOS support) is
the one case where floppy setup is still the only method to get going.

I've lost interest in very low spec systems, but at one time I
tested coyote linux (a small, floppy based system). Damn Small Linux is
probably the most popular of the minimalist systems. I just prefer the
full set of software- I'm spoiled. The complete set that I use fits on a
DVD (4G). 128M of system RAM is the minimum I'll fool with, too.

OT: I see you are posting from Google. It is considered good posting style
to quote some context when replying, and to not top post, etc. This group
has agreed to use these usenet etiquette guidelines.

--
Douglas Mayne

.



Relevant Pages

  • Re: Hardware Restart
    ... I have checked on the bios, and the only floppy disk recurrence is for USB ... Do you think that a Hardware ... The hardware gets recognized, and the wrong names appear, and the icons. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • RE: [SLE] hal/haldaemon
    ... see this daemon is just to detect changes in hardware like when you ... And disabling ... XML code just to prevent HAL from trying to automount my floppy drive every ... as I can recall, the last time I used it was to make a boot floppy, and that ...
    (SuSE)
  • Floppy drive with other memory device slots
    ... I was wandering through Comp-USA this morning and I noticed a floppy ... drive on the shelf that had sockets for other memory devices. ... I found some hardware ... save desktop space. ...
    (freebsd-questions)
  • Re: 5 1/4 floppy?!
    ... After you find the hardware, ... "LINUX floppy 5 inch" ... Windows supporting those? ... computers needing those drives and diskettes?) ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • can not install floppy driver in XP
    ... "Windows can not install hardware. ... Driver Code 39" This is the message i get when i try to ... install the floppy driver to my system. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)