Loading Linux on Laptop with no CD ROM
 

I have a laptop with no CD ROM. Floppy only.
Laptop is probably about 6 or 7 years old. Specs are decent enough on it.

I have an external USB CD drive. However the BIOS does not support booting from a USB device (very limited options here).

I have Ubuntu aching to be installed but just can't get started.

Tried Smart Boot Manager and Smart Boot Disk but to no avail.

Took a DOS 6.22 floppy and copied SBM on to it and booted but it complained about a missing file (can't remember exactly something like cmp????).

Stuck here and looking for assistance.

Would like a bootable floppy that could recognize my USB based CDROM and then I can install from there.

TIA for any help.

Welcome to Linux and LQ!

Apparently, you're not the only prospective Ubuntu user with this problem. There's (at least) one similar thread here on LQ and lots of stuff if you search for "boot floppies" on Ubuntu Forums. Please don't get this wrong, but it helps everyone if you search the forum for your problem before posting (search LQ that is; I wouldn't have expected you to come up with the Ubuntu Forum). You get quicker results and others are spared of answering the same questions all over again.

That said, I'd recommend you try the (almost) painless way to install Ubuntu from a USB optical drive. Linux is all about choice, so there's lots of other ways you could do this (e.g. by using Debian's boot floppies), but I guess this is the easiest way.

Good luck and feel free to come back here if that didn't help. :)

I can see your point and believe in searching before asking. I may have missed the thread or just overwhelmed with the amount of information that has to be sorted through.

It seems like with almost any question that I have I can anticipate spending many hours sorting through the various fora, Websites etc. before I can discern an answer that I might be able to pursue further.

Thanks for your reply and guidance. Will look into it shortly.