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Topic: real old laptop...help, i only have a floppy drive< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
lxlsubzer0lxl Offline





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Posted: Feb. 08 2004,02:35 QUOTE

i have a really old laptop that only has a floppy drive, how can i get DSL on it? because the only downloads on the site are .iso
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bluefreak Offline





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Posted: Feb. 08 2004,11:17 QUOTE

does it have usb? if u connect a usb cd drive to it then do a hd install it might work. or u could put dsl on a usb flash drive and boot it from there.

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live long and prosper
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Modrak Offline





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Posted: Feb. 08 2004,11:56 QUOTE

Get some single-floopy distro with NFS support and install from network :-)
On 560MB disk it looks like this...

-----------PREPARE----------
1. Do 2 partions: 60 MB (FAT) and 500MB (ext2)
2. Copy the DSL-CD thru NFS to the FAT partion(so the FAT part. will have the same file layout like the CD !!! IT MUST !!! )
3. Boot DOS.Take a floppy with syslinux.exe
4. a:>syslinux c:
-----------REBOOT----------
5. The DSL shoud boot live, like from CD
>>> If you just want to have DSL live, like the CD , STOP HERE
6. Do a HD install and lilo setup...
----------REBOOT-----------
The DSL will boot up from the ext2 part.
Format the 60MB part as linux swap :-)
# mkswap /dev/hda1 (the fat part.)
# swapon /dev/hda1 (the swap is alway good)
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hasty Offline





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Posted: Feb. 08 2004,14:40 QUOTE

It's worth persevering as your old machine will get a new lease of life. It runs great on a p150 with 32 mb ram.

Do you have access to another computer?
If so you could try connecting with a network or parallel port cable & booting using a single floppy distro such as tmsrtbt or nuclinux. (google will find both)

Toms uses both plip & slip so you could establish a tcp/ip connection between them and copy the CD over (Don't know if a network install is possible with these - too long since I fiddled with them)

A couple of years ago I transferred win95 to a floppy only laptop using a parallel port cable and tomsrtbt using plip.
Took ages to complete  as the speed is about 100mb an hour :)
But it does work & whats half an hour of conviviality ?
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hasty Offline





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Posted: Feb. 08 2004,14:46 QUOTE

Just a thought but if someone does get this transfer to a floppy only laptop sorted (hopefully lxlsubzer0lxl :)) ), would they please post the details on the forum as it seems a common problem with older kit.
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14 replies since Feb. 08 2004,02:35 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >

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