How to load Linux??????? Not so easy.
 

Hi,
i am faced with a grave problem here. I have a machine that is 10 years old. Its bios is so old that it has as options "First boot device" only the floppy drive or the hard disk. I can't select the cdrom as my first boot device because there is no such option. Then how can i load linux on to it?
Just HOw how???
Please help me out.
Thank you.

boot up damn small linux on a floppy or some other floppy distro and then chroot onto the CD and from there try manually installing it. I have the same problem, except for some reason it wont boot up floppy or cdrom, still looking into it... Hard to install an OS, when you cant load any installers.

To chroot, first mount the cd rom somewhere on the floppy and then use the command "chroot /path/to/cdrom/root /bin/bash". Depending the linux distro you are installing from then on, you'll have to figure out how to run the installer.

OP. Use your brain. If you have a 10 year old PC and you want to install windows on it, and it only boots from a floppy or hard drive, what would you do?

Use google. Read help files. Make boot floppies. In any case, you will find the PC will probably not suit your needs if it is that old. It would have to be a P166ish or less to not boot from a CD.

You could also mention what distro you are wanting to install and what you plan on doing with the machine. You will need to tweak to use a gui on an old machine like that, esp if you have 32meg ram or something.

cheat with another computer
 

i hate using boot floppy as i am lazy uninspired what have you. The trick i use is pull the hard drive out and do the install on a newer computer then put the drive back in the old box. i have done this method on 3 or 4 boxes which works well. Time involved swapping a drive around is equal to the time it takes making a boot floppy.

If lazy, then why on earth spend time making a 10-year old computer work?? Sounds more like cheap to me......;)

If you like your hard drive transplant trick, why not do that with Linux........

If you really must use the older machine, have you checked for BIOS updates?

What RAM & HD does it have?? This may give us more reasons to suggest alternative uses for it...;)

I do the same here at times. Recently put mandrake 10 on a P166. Swapped the drive to a P4, installed it there in a fraction of the time it would take on the 166, then swapped it back, let it work out the new hardware. Worked well :)

Much quicker than a boot floppy as I have a heck of a time finding a working floppy drive OR disk around here... Most of the machines just don't have them any more.

my own view
 

1- The PC is ten years old and an old bios .
2- You can't boot from your CD-ROM only floppy or hard disk .

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Your pc is too old maybe for linux , you didn't say much , first you must know if the linux distribution will run on your computer without problems like slowness or system crash ....

If your computer can run on windows xp it can run on Mandrake 10 but in my own view its not worth the trouble because linux needs powerful computers to run well old ones use old versions .

There is a way to run linux and windows together so if you need to uninstall or install linux on your pc it won't have any effect on windows .

see VMWare workstation its a new technology .

http://www.vmware.com/

you can download a linux distribution from the internet or you got the CDs , run windows open VMWare then run linux its easy but read first how can you install linux in VMWare .

if you need more information or help just ask .

Not completely true. A p166 will run mandrake 10 just fine. It will even run with a trimmed kde, but runs far better with a light wm. I have a p166 desktop here running mandrake 10 as a test bed, email, browsing machine.

Ram is a big factor and 32 meg is getting to the lower limit even with a light wm, 64meg is better.

By the way, hi. How are things in Saudi arabia, we don't see many from your area... Nice to see linux there as well.