Doing a network/CD-less install for VectorLinux 4?
 

Hey all

I've got an old 333 which sat in an overheating death box for several years. I'm trying to salvage the chip by using it in a Vector box to-be (3gig, 2gig, 1gig, 96Mb, 10/100, no CDROM)

I'd really like to do some sort of a network based install for this one, as I can't get a working CD-ROM drive into the machine (I think the BIOS doesn't like them) I know that for earlier versions of Vector you could slap files on the HDD ahead of time and then install with a floppy. There's a claim that now the kernel is too big for one floppy. Is there any way to use a different boot disk (ie small enough kernel) and splice the bits from the CD off onto the HDD or an NFS mount?

To rephrase, is there any simple way to get Vector onto a box with no CDROM short of copying images/ripping drives out? As in, combination floppy/network install.

1. set up an ftp server on a machine on your network and make the vector image available
2. get a linux bootdisk and boot with it
3. set up the network
4. download the image using ftp
5. run ...
losetup /dev/loop1 /path/to/iso
mount -t iso9660 /dev/loop1 /mnt/cdrom

6. run the setup program from /mnt/cdrom/setup ( or whatever it is: install, setup, etc.. )

Alternatively
If you have another linux client on your network that is hosting a NFS server you can mount the cdrom that way. You will have get a bootdisk with nfs on it.