Floppy Installation explanation
 

Hi i'm currently just reading up on linux for the first time and came across something that i find a bit puzzling.

if somebody can explain the following to me i'd appreciate it!

this is an excerpt from a book:

"If for some reason you don't boot using the CD-ROM you will need to create a floppy installation image. This
can happen if the CD is not bootable or you have downloaded a non-iso image of the distribution."


My stupid question is..i'm assuming this is a fresh installation of the OS on a machine and i suspect an image will be too large to fit into a floppy disk so what does the above mean? 0_O

thanks!

The floppy images are for booting and setting up the cdrom, or network to continue with the install if your machine cannot boot from the disk.
If your machine will boot from a CD or DVD then this is not a problem.

Slackware I think was the last to have a floppy install.

There are some small versions that will fit on a floppy still, but most are now targeting USB sticks.

Pretty much every desktop or laptop computer built after 1999 can boot directly from an optical drive, so unless you're dealing with some seriously ancient hardware, you shouldn't need to worry about this.

Also many distro's offer a floppy that can contact some server to then download the OS. Usually it was ftp or nfs or tftp but now you could use a gpxe floppy to access a wider array of servers. See netboot.me or bko

Many business high end laptops did not have cdrom drives. I guess to keep people working? They are showing up on auction sites.

just and try to buy a new computer with a 3.5 "hard" floppy , i have part of a shelf full of 3.5 disks
sony (the last manufacture ), stopped making them last year
how about a 8 in floppy or the "newer " 5.5 in

it is NOW boot from usb