Install Linux on Laptop w/o CDROM

[DovyWeiss]

I want to install Linux (my first time) onto an old Toshiba 110CS laptop.

The laptop has 775MB HD, 40MB RAM, 800x600x256color screen, and a floppy drive, but no CDROM drive.

It has 2 PCMCIA slots, and I have a Linksys network PC card in one, and it is networked nicely to the rest of my home network.

I would need to install either from copying installation files to the hard drive via the network while Win95 is still working on it, or with floppies.

I'm not even sure which Linux distribution to use. All I basically need is network connectivity via the mini Linksys card, and a nice user interface (GNOME is good, no?)

I would install OpenOffice.org / Mozilla Firefox too, but I guess I could do that myself once I have it up an running.

Can someone help???

[ALL]

You could Install a Virtual Drive using a program like Alcohol 120%, but that makes a complete copy of the CD and with a 750MB HD that may not be enough space. so you may be better off using Knoppix. which that may even be too big.

those are my seggestions!
-ALL

[dglienna]

you may be able to map a drive after booting to a floppy, an install from there. it'd work until you have to reboot, but by then things should be installed... Just a theory, but it seems plausible to me that it should work.

[Lightning]

Most Linux install's have an option for network installation. Then you only need a the install-boot-disk with the network-driver

[Dave Sell]

But the installer needs to find an FTP server with the setup files I think.

[DovyWeiss]

I ended up making the Debian boot and root floppies. I hoped the rest could be installed from network, but it didn't give me the option, just floppy drive or a mounted partition. So I went and made the 4 driver disks that it wanted, and suddenly after came an option to configure PCMCIA support! So I did, using default everything, and up came an option Configure Network! So I did, and luckily I had a router in the network, so it configured itself with DHCP. And then it asked where to get the base packages from, and I said network, and it downloaded the system from the Debian mirror!

But then while running 'apt', the package system I ran into problems. The root of them was that I had allocated only 500MB for the Linux partition.

I now reinstalled allocating about 750MB, leaving space for a swap partition and a small DOS (FAT16) partition in case, and am trying 'apt.'

Will be back soon...

[DovyWeiss]

Turns out that for unpacking and configuring the packages it needs even more space. As a result, it downloaded all the packages, and while configuring them, at some point they all had errors, no space left on device. Now I can't even boot, because it keeps saying "Running something something bootmap.gz" and it takes a few seconds, then it just writes it over and over and tries again.

Booting from resuce disk, all it said was the kernel couldn't load root partition.

Very frustrated.

[dglienna]

if you can find a Win98 boot diskette, you can boot to the floppy, and then format the drive. it should work. I can't think of the name of the program that allows you to totally wipe out the hard drive, but it should come to me. I'll post back when it does.

Searched this forum, and found it. FDISK will completely erase all partitions on the drive. Run it, re-boot to the floppy and then format the drive.

[DovyWeiss]

Thanks dglienna, I know how to wipe out a drive, and have used FDisk, (and the Linux version which is better, called cfdisk) and I already have used it to wipe everything, then partition almost the whole hard drive to Linux, and I meant to say that still there wasn't enough space to install the 'Desktop Environment.'

I can install X window system, it's only 6MB, so can someone maybe tell me how to install JUST GNOME and NOT KDE or anything else, and to maybe download only the basics of GNOME at that.

'apt-get install gnome' didn't work, because apparently it's split up into packages, just I don't know which I need.

Thanks in advance!

[DovyWeiss]

I installed WindowMaker, since it's very small. Works nicely, but it just doesn't compare.

I still have maybe 350MB out of 750MB left.

I don't want this. I want a REAL desktop, like Windows. Also I want graphical interfaces to all the Linux stuff. I know how to edit text files (I am a programmer) but the interfaces would be better.

Also, X takes a while to start, showing a black screen, and then finally it shows up a minute or two later. Also, I am having trouble shutting down X. Ctrl-Alt-BackSpace turns the screen black, then 2 minutes later x is there again.

[DovyWeiss]

Wow I can't believe I posted this over a year ago.
Since then, I found a window manager I liked a lot (IceWM) and configured it to my needs, and also installed Dillo, AbiWord, GNumeric, Rox-Filer, Xfe, a couple of graphical text editors, etc. etc. etc. I also installed vnc-server so I could log into the machine remotely, even from more than one place at once, with separate X sessions. SWEET! I also installed dhttpd, the minimal web server. Nice.

I eventually found a spare hard drive that was slightly bigger and built another system, this time with Xandros, which was familiar, and yet had the ease of management and power of Debian. I would have done Ubuntu but it didn't exist yet.

I had a great time, and I thinkas soon as I have a spare computer I will use Linux with it, but as of now I do development on Windows.

[thewrinklyninja]

Have you tried Damn Small Linux? (DSL) I believe this can be booted and installed from a USB memory stick. There is also Puppy Linux. Both of these distros weigh in at about 50MB

[DovyWeiss]

I have tried DSL and liked it, however, I wanted to be compatible with the Debian repositories. Remember, though, this was posted a year ago...