Help installing small distro without cd.
 

Hello everyone,

I am trying to install a small, minimalistic distro on my computer. I like Bodhi linux, but DSL or any other very lightweight distro will do. However, there are a couple of problems:

1) I am trying to install on a Dell Dimension 4600 with 512MB ram (it's almost 10 years old now).
2) (Both) CD drives are broken (I don't have any other desktops to get one from).
3) I do not think that the BIOS supports booting from a USB device (or, at least, I have been unsuccesful with it).

There are, however, a couple of things that may work in my favor:

1) It has an internet connection.
2) It currently dual boots between Windows XP and Xubuntu.

I used the Wubi installer to get Xubuntu on this machine, however, I would like to get rid of Windows and have just Linux (like I said, a small, lightweight distro).

Xubuntu is OK, but it is a bit too bloated (the Wubi installer offered no options but the full desktop install).

Is there any way I can install (hopefully Bodhi, or) another lightweight distro on here?

If not, at the very least, how can I remove all extra software and just have the bare bones Xubuntu core?

Any input would be appreciated, thank you all for your help.

although that is it neither small, or minimalistic,
Debian does have a 'net install, that you could use.

512Mb ram would still be ok. just.

Thanks pierre2 for the reply. I ended up updating the BIOS, and I was able to boot from a USB. I got Bodhi installed (yay!).

congrats on success, I was going to suggest debootstrap which has options at installing from your xubuntu system.
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/apds03.html Don't forget to mark thread as solved.