Hello all!

I am looking for a distro which would load in a floppy, and will detect USB. Nothing else is needed.

I hope you do not mind me asking to expand on your simple question.

1) do you mean the bios boots a floppy and you write normal data or read data off an usb or
2) do you mean bios can not boot usb so must boot floppy and then you want a bootable usb?

I don't have a CD-ROM, only a floppy drive and USB 1.1 port (and a PCMCIA to USB 2 adapter). And the computer cannot boot from USB.

That leaves only Floppy, so I wanted a way to boot using Floppy, and then install something which is located on USB.

Right now, I have solved this problem using DOS:
1) Make a bootable DOS floppy (http://www.stefan2000.com/darkehorse..._boot_disk.ZIP) which will recognise your USB port.
2) Have a Linux distribution on USB
3) Use "Loadlin" to boot into this distro
4) Install to hard-disk

I had Windows 98 installed on HD, so I just skipped through the Floppy part and used loadlin from it. (Of course, this way you will NOT get your USB recognized in DOS, and so you will have to use one partition in your HD for storing the linux distribution, and other partition where you will install it.)


So, at the end, I would still like to know if there is a way where I can skip HD altogether. That is the gist, and any of the options you suggest will do.

yep looks like excellent hardware?...and I assume you have already searched for bios flash to enable usb booting?

please consider ....have a friend download puppy and create the puppy floppy called wakepup and install puppy to your usb stick....then you boot the wakepup which searches for puppy on usb and hopefully boots it.

http://puppylinux.com/cd-puppy.htm

search term wakepup.

2) I am not sure how you got w98 on hard drive but I can understand your reluctance to try and install linux when you have a system working. Since I am only offering options, there is an option to download a pxe boot floppy and install linux over the net....but not sure if your hardware has the connection and you may be using pcmcia

there are a number of distro that have such floppies and pcmcia floppies but as I said it means installing to hard drive that what not your question

3) there is toms root disk which formats to 1770 kb minix format which can be done with w98 but I do not have experience in knowing if usb is easy to enable

you may have to modprobe usb-storage or some other module.

http://www.toms.net/rb/

I am looking at d/l of puppy as we speak and found version 4 is coming out in a couple of days....is that an omen or what?

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy4/s...2+15%3A35%3A11

I actually haven't checked enabling USB boot option.

But, well, I have 32 MB ram So puppy won't run. (I have ordered a 64MB ram btw.) And I checked with toms root disk, and it doesn't come with usb-storage.o

I wish I could just install gcc and create a mini-distro myself, but unfortunately I don't have time currently (I should start writing my thesis).

*ATTENTION*
Sorry if I was unable to explain it clearly. I actually want to wipe Win98 altogether, and install one Linux on the whole 5GB hard-disk. Which is kind of possible right now - if I use a DOS floppy and then go ahead with loadlin etc... I just want to know if there is a way to do it through floppy.

Right now I am looking for USB boot option.

Puppy 4... they need atleast 128MB ram The maximum I can go upto is 96

Hopefully I will be able to use grml, though.

thanks for the ram update try DSL
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

again its a friend to burn cd and or usb.

Ok, I have a thought....

Install Smart Boot Manager.

Boot to the USB stick into either Debian or Slackware

Enjoy

armanox

are you sure a floppy will enable usb booting with SBM?

the pic and your link does not indicate it?
http://sourceforge.net/project/scree...?group_id=4185

they look more like hard drives internal

DSL was my choice too It runs under 32 MB *YEY!*

SBM looks like a boot manager, like GRUB or Lilo. Am I right?

My sound doesn't work on DSL though, and it lacks a lot of tools (like a good and nice coreutils, or gcc).

But DSL still won't fit under a floppy.

correct....so your friend downloads dsl and makes a live cd and creates dsl on your usb stick.....and your friend makes the wakepup (now called wakepup2 on puppy version 3 series...don't know what it is called on v4)

I have tested wakepup floppy in virtual box and it has option
1 boot cd hd and usb drives
and 2 other options to just load the usb 1.1 or 2 driver.

The problem with wakepup is option 1 searches for puppy on usb stick and not actually do a kind of bios boot to usb drive.

2) I am still pensive on SBM but I hope for your sake I am wrong.

SBM is more basic than grub...grub can be used a trouble shooter. SBM is more akin to chainloader for each bootable device. so yes it is a kind of boot manager.

3) syslinux may be the answer????? Not sure there are questions at wiki but no answer
http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/HowTos

ok I half right see this dsl howto
http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Boot_Floppies

you or your friend download the boot usb image (the second mentioned)

your friend d/load dsl and burns it to cd....boots cd and makes your usb a dsl

good luck

ps if you get into floppy trouble try this
http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin/fo...7;t=19247;st=0

(this was a result of a search I did for syslinux and floppy usb )