Installing Linux by Booting from Floppy?

agee220 · 07-18-2004, 02:57 PM

I have an old dell pentium II 133 that I would like to try one of the smaller distros on. The problem is that while it has a cd drive, it can't be set to boot from it. Is there a way to get a floppy to boot the system in such a way as to install linux from the cd drive? I'm looking at Knoppix, but any suggestions on newbie friendly small distros would be appreciated.
Nyah Levi

BajaNick · 07-18-2004, 04:29 PM

I remember reading about installing slackware from floppies, you have to make several of them but I didnt read the whole article also there might be a way to install Damn Small Linux or Peanut linux off of floppies. Try Slackware first cuz it has more than DSL and peanut.
Heres some links:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
http://www.slackware.com/
http://www.ibiblio.org/peanut/

agee220 · 07-18-2004, 06:55 PM

Thank you for responding, but what I have is a machine that will not boot from the cdrom, even tho it will read it. I need a floppy that will boot the machine and allow me to then install from the cdrom. Also the hard drive is under 3 gig, which is too small for a full install, which is why I need a small distro. Thanks again, I will try the floppy distros, and if anyone else can answer my original question, thank in advance. Nyah Levi

Demonbane · 07-18-2004, 07:05 PM

Yeah you can install Slackware(or most of the distros) using bootdisks, on Slackware 10 CD1 there's a "bootdisks" directory, check out the readme.txt file in there. I think bare.i will do for you.
Though Slackware isn't really newbie friendly, if you don't mind investing a little time into it you should be alright.

slyman · 07-18-2004, 07:08 PM

Try Libranet 2.7 (The free version) http://www.libranet.com. You can create boot disks from the CD, even under windows IIRC.

If you want to learn something about the nuts and bolts of linux, look at Core Linux (http://coredistro.sf.net). I use this on my P166 which cannot boot from CD either. It's not actually anywhere near as hard as it sounds, especially if you use Tony Whitmore's guides. I wrote a reiserfs howto for it which requires booting from a floppy - it is in the forums.