Hello again,

I decided to sacrifice my Laptop to Damned Small Linux. I'd like to prepare a Live CD on my desktop machine and then transfer it to the laptop. The laptop boots from A: and C: only, so I will need to move the boot image to A: and then transfer to D:. As an added complication my laptop has only one bay for both A: and D:. That should make things interesting!
I find the download spots for DSL, but the instructions are limited and over my head. Anybody got a spot where an in depth look at installation is discussed? I have a Zip drive if that is any help... I don't think I can boot from there.

Thanks
BillC

just go into your BIOS and set it to boot from cd before local drives

The difficulty would be in building an installer that is capable of hotswaping drives. zipslack would be easier to install.

Michael et. al.,

I spent the better part of one day trying to get the Hitachi to let me load Redhat 6.1. (A disk I've been hording for a couple of years.) I created the boot disk from the CD image file and tried "hot swapping" the floppy and CD, something I vaguely remember was a no-no from having read the manual, what, maybe ten years ago. Now my built-in Ethernet port seems to be having a netstorm, although it does work intermittently. Oops. I owe an apology to the tech gods for not having used this Laptop "up" when it was "current". Perhaps beating my head against this wall will be a good thing... to help me get a handle on Linux.

Thanks for the tip MichaelK... I'll take a look at Zipslack, perhaps it will facilitate a load that starts on disk and moves to CD? That would be good!

Also, perhaps someone out there knows of a way to move all the files to floppy(!). Or perhaps I could dig out one of my old Megahertz Pentiums and load up Linux there to help me port everything to the laptop. Forgive my fuzzy thinking... this is new territory for me.

BillC

zipslack fits on a zip disk so you can create a regular DOS floppy boot disk with drivers for the zip disk and then install to hard drive.

If I understand correctly, you are trying to install DSL to the hard drive on an older laptop that has only a single bay for a swappable CD and floppy drive.

Does this laptop have a network port or can you add one via PCMCIA?

There is a network install script available for DSL. I would reccomend going to their site and searching the forums for "network install". Or you may even check their online documentation.

I would supply a link to the thread myself, but I just do not have time to search right now. I'll check back later and see what your status is, and perhaps will be able to provide a link at that time.

Your other simple (and yet not so simple) option is to remove the hard drive from the laptop, stick it in another laptop, or desktop (with a cheap 2.5" to 3.5" IDE converter), and create a small (50 or so megs) EXT2 partion on it. Then copy the "/knoppix" folder from the CD to that partition on the hard drive. Put it back in the older laptop, boot off the floppy, then hit F2 at the boot prompt and it should list an option for booting off a hard drive partiion.

Good luck.

MichaelK and A2brute,

Thanks to both of you for such great suggestions! I am going to give ZipSlack a shot, as soon as a free few hours pops up. I like what I read about it being a spartan installation. That will give me a chance to learn Linux like I learned WinDoze, starting with DOS. Perhaps I will give the install a second chance and try A2s idea of the wire load for DSL, first I will need to confirm that I haven't blown out the Ethernet port, or find out how to disable it and add that PC 10/100 card my wife isn't using anymore.

Anyhow, WOW! You may have to wait a while, but this site is a winner! I hope someday to be able to help others get to where they are going... thanks guys!

BillC