Alright, I've got an old IBM Thinkpad 240x (PIII 500mhz, 128MB RAM, and a 10GB HDD running windows 2000 pro) I'd like to install suse 9.2 or 9.3 on. That's simple enough but the real problem comes with the laptops lack of pretty much everything else...There's no cdrom or floppy drive and the only network device right now is the linksys wireless pcmcia card i've got. I'm looking for suggestions as to how to go about doing this. I do have a usb harddrive I can use to transfer the suse images with but beyond that i'm lost and not even terribly sure if that's helpful. I've also got another laptop running suse 9.3 perfectly and a desktop running windows x64/suse 9.3 64bit dual boot in case these can be used for anything. google hasn't really provided anything i understand so i'm coming here for some help...thanks in advance!

no one can give me any love?? i want windows on this laptop like i want the beer in my fridge to run out!! little help here!

U could try DamnSmall Linux,

This distro have a specific distro for a USB memory, so U can boot a live linux from a USB memory, and then configure Ur network an Finally install linux using NFS.


Other option is LAN booting, there are some manuals in the net

It is very difficult to do these things without a floppy. I would go to ebay and one there is lot and they are cheap for the thinkpads.

As far as I understand your only boot option is the hard disk. In that case your options are:

Take the disk out and install it on a more "capable" machine where you can install a simple linux distribution that will give you access to you wireless card and then you can use your wireless card to slowly expand you system. That's assuming that you have a linux compatible card...

It should also be possible to install grub on the MBR, write the contents of the boot disk on the hard disk, write the iso files of a linux distibution on the hard disk and then boot from the boot disk on the hard disk, and tell it to read the ISOs from hard disk again. It should be possible but I wouldn't bet my life on it

A third way would be to download a linux ditro that you download from windows and which is live and run from the your windows partition (I think knoppix can do that). You can use that to install grub and install linux on separate partition that you will slowly build up. Debian have a way of doing just that.

whehehehehe
I have had the same problem......... Had a 'very' small pc box (geode CPU box) without floppy or cdrom..

But i would agree with dsiganos, go find yourself either a external floppy, or maybe an external CD-Rom drive.. This will save a lot of head-ache..

What you could also try, is create a bootable USB Flashdisk using Damn Small Linux. From there you could install other stuff, but then again I doubt this old laptop would support booting from USB..

Another option is of course (if you're lucky), find someone with the same laptop or a similar laptop (same CPU / chipset). Install your HDD in his/her laptop, and install the distro of your choise on it. Install X if you want, but make sure you boot in runlevel 3 (you can edit settings later). Replace the harddrive in your own laptop, boot and if you are lucky, you can start configuring linux!
Got my Thinkpad T22 without floppy/cdrom to install this way with FC3 and FC4 several times..

Hope you can work it out!!
Good luck!!