Installing Linux from floppy drives?

Wintershade · 02-05-2008, 07:25 AM

OK, so I've got this old laptop which seems to be working completely fine. It's an Intel 486, has 2 PCMCIA slots, a Floppy drive, no USB and no CD or DVD (lol) drives.

Is there a way to put some Linux distro on this, which distros could be put and how?

Many thanks.

indienick · 02-05-2008, 08:20 AM

There are some Linux distros that are made for floppy disks; muLinux is one such distro, but I will warn you, it doesn't seem as though muLinux has been updated since 2004.

enine · 02-05-2008, 08:29 AM

Slackware still has the installs in disk sets that you can copy to floppy. Make the boot and root floppies then the four to five disks in the A set and install the basic os then you could ftp the rest down. Or some distos will have a bootable floppy that can give working network and let you ftp the rest in.

Stéphane Ascoët · 02-05-2008, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wintershade

OK, so I've got this old laptop which seems to be working completely fine. It's an Intel 486, has 2 PCMCIA slots, a Floppy drive, no USB and no CD or DVD (lol) drives.

Is there a way to put some Linux distro on this, which distros could be put and how?

Many thanks.

Debian Netinstall. You can add a CD-ROM device by using a SCSI PCMCIA card...

ArcLinux · 02-05-2008, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stéphane Ascoët

Debian Netinstall. You can add a CD-ROM device by using a SCSI PCMCIA card...

If he adds the CDrom this way he might as well have his pick of distros.

This would be the easiest solution though it may involve getting hardware that you do not have access too.

I would suggest looking for the floppy install from distro's that offer the install. I would also suggest staying away from some of the newer pop cult distros since they seem to have issues with older hardware.

Good luck.