Slack based floppy distro
 

Hey all,
I was lucky enough to come across a Toshiba Tecra 700CT laptop (100mhz, 48mb, the usual goodness).
The CD drive isn't working so well, but the floppy is fine. So I want to install a very very minimal Slackware setup (basically that boots up), and from there I can manually copy over packages I need, one floppy at a time.
The laptop doesn't have ethernet or any other tricks like that. Maybe I could somehow rig the hard drive up into another computer or the like, but it seems unlikely.

So, does anyone know some really minimal Slackware floppy distros? Heck, even a good old version of Slackware (when it still came on floppies).

Thanks for any ideas!

I see three options.
1. Use the Slackware install and config pages on the official website to install using the old method.
2. Use a temporary network with perhaps SLIP
3. Use tomsrtbt, cause that is what I consider the best linux-on-a-floppy type distro.

Booting with floppies and then installing over SLIP is probably the best option, though you are going to want to pack a lunch for that one, it'll be slow going.

Two options that stand right out are

1. BasicLinux.
BaslicLinux, http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...ions/baslinux/ is based upon Slackware 4.0, but a minimalist all-floppy distro that can be upgraded.
Uses solely the floppy and hard drives to start up -- no need for a laptop CD-ROM or LAN/modem access.

2. ZipSlack.
ZipSlack, http://www.slackware.org/zipslack/ is essentially an up-to-date Slackware which is specifically packaged and compressed into a <100MB downloadable zipfile. You transfer the zipfile (zipslack.zip) to your laptop using a floppy disk and the laptop's parallel port into a pre-existing FAT or FAT32 partition (e.g., DOS or Windows9x/ME/2K/XP). A fully functional Slackware, and it's fairly easy to upgrade and enhance as well. :cool:

nycace36

You say the CD-ROM drive isn't running "so well". If that means that it does work, just slowly, I'd like to point you to some more options, although the tips above are all good:

http://www.slax.org
http://www.amigolinux.org

These are two small distributions that might be of use for you.

gargamel