what is best OS to install and how?

rishineedsajob · 03-23-2003, 11:09 PM

I'm trying to install a fresh os on a laptop with 3Gig drive and 48MB ram. No Cd drive. Ethernet card.

What are my best options?

I'm installing dos and drivers for the Ethernet card now, but not sure where I'll go from there. Any suggestions?

I would like to experiment with linux, but since I have no CD drive, I can't copy ISO's on redhat/suse or other vendors. I tried network install, but both vendors require 9xMB ram and I don't know how to create swap partition.

Thanks!

slakmagik · 03-24-2003, 02:38 AM

This might help. Sounds like getting Linux on that computer would be a trick. Good luck.

pilot1 · 03-24-2003, 07:22 AM

Well, you could download the RH ISOs, put them on your hard drive and then boot with their boot disk which will allow you to install off of your hard drive.
The problem with that is you only have a 3 gig HD, and the ISOs are around 2 gigs..

rishineedsajob · 03-24-2003, 02:02 PM

I HAVE been able to boot with floppy distributions (tomsrtbt, RH, Suse) but all lead to dead end...but I think I'm almost there...

Maybe you know some workarounds for these:

tomsrtbt (http://www.toms.net/rb/): Can't find pcmcia support
RH (http://www.redhat.com): No network install option

Suse (http://www.suse.com): Connects to ftp server, but complains that there is not enough swap space (because I only have 48MB ram). How do I make swap space? Tom's distribution is the only one that gives me access to a shell. I've used fdisk to make 2 linux partitions. 1gig for linux swap (id=82), and 1.5 gig for linux (id=83). Suse still doesn't see this.

Is is possible to copy the contents of tom's floppy boot iso to a partition, boot up with this new partition, then copy the contents of suse's floopy boot iso to a partition and then run suse's install from the commad prompt?

slakmagik · 03-24-2003, 05:21 PM

You could try Vector Linux, maybe. I've downloaded that but haven't gotten around to trying to install it because I've got to prep the computer first - but I think it's supposed to take 350 megs - the download itself is 122. And it also installs from floppy and files on the hard drive, like pilot1 said RH does - I thought downloading anything at all was an issue for you, but if you can get it on there, it might work. Supposed to have support for what you want, I think, and it better work on 48 megs memory or less or I'm screwed. *g* Sounds like what you need is something over a micro-distro and under a full distro, so...

Dave Skywatcher · 03-24-2003, 06:18 PM

If you would like to try Debian, you can download the installation system (a minimal install set) which will connect to an FTP server and do the "real" install over the internet, downloading each package you choose to install as it goes.

http://www.debian.org/distrib/floppyinst

edit: Forgot to mention -- Debian is designed for some pretty low-resource systems, so even though you've tried other floppy-based installs, it may be less likely to give you flack over your lack of RAM.

rishineedsajob · 03-24-2003, 10:03 PM

thanks for the info. My system has no CDROM drive so what I was trying to do is a FTP install. Getting a base system with network was sort of a pain, but here's how it worked:

I almost had suse working. I loaded debian and created a linux partition, then kicked off suse ftp install. Unfortunetly, it kept freezing when it reached around 75% download. Bubye suse, I'm not sure what's the problem, but that's plenty of time I've spent on you and now it's time for next vendor.

The solution was debian!!

Thanks to all for your help. I look forward to posting more questions outside the newbie section ~~!