At 65 I think I might be out of my depth so please be aware I might be asking some simple questions. I have a Compaq Presserio 1234 lap top, running win98SE. I have partioned the hard drive and down loaded DSL 4.4.2 and opened it in the new partion. When I open the partion I can see the following files boot.cat, boot.msg,f2,f3, german.kbd isolinux.bin, isolinux.lg, linuk24, logo16, minirt24.gz.
How do I get it to work as there is no install file.
Thanks Alan

Firstly, welcome to LQ. The file you needed should end in .iso, as shown here: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/i..._I_download.3F In the list of downloads, go to the "current" folder and get either of the files shown in A or B on the link I posted (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/i..._(long_version) explains further).

Assuming that your laptop supports booting from CD, you need to burn that .iso file to a CD. In your burning program, select the option to burn an image to disk - that will expand the iso into the required files and set a bootable flag. From there, reboot your laptop and boot from CD and follow the prompts and questions to install to your new partition.

And don't forget, we're here to help!

You have a CD image on your hard drive partition. The easiest thing to do is to burn a CD from your CD image and then boot the CD to get -------------- XavierP has already posted this.

If your hardware will not burn a CD then you can install from the CD image on your hard drive. This is far more complicated than installing from a CD so only do this as a last resort. Here are some threads which explain how to install from a CD image on a hard drive.:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...t=dsl+isolinux

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...t=dsl+isolinux

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...t=dsl+isolinux

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Steve Stites

Thanks xavierp for the info, I said there would be silly questions but where are the downloads the only one I could see was
Can I run DSL inside Windows?
Yes, Download dsl-embedded. Unzip and Click dsl-base.bat. This will run DSL in the Qemu Virtual Machine. For an overview of Virtual Machines and Running DSL, see this Article
but that link came up The webpage cannot be found sorry to be a pest.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html is the download page, then go to ftp://ftp.oss.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linu...ons/damnsmall/ and then to the current page. You need this one: dsl-4.2.5.iso.

I would advise you to read the documentation pages and/or the wiki - or at least skim through to familiarise yourself with the generalities. Installing Linux is a lot easier than it used to be, but it can be a little confusing in some places. You will also find that your Windows programs won't run natively and the file structure is entirely different. Though if you've ever used Unix, a lot will seem very familiar. Sorry if that seems very basic, but a lot of people get turned off from the outset because it's so different.

The search function at LQ will be invaluable to you and you can always start a new thread here if you get really stuck. If you see any terms you don't quite understand, just copy and paste them straight into Google and you'll usually find a useful page to explain things.