# linux on floppy disks



## 614cooker (Aug 21, 2006)

hi there im just woundering if there is any old linux operating systems out there on floppy disks for a laptop that is p100mhz, 16mb ram, 3gb hhd


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## InterKnight (Oct 19, 2004)

Hi there.

I am not sure what exactly you are looking for (as in doing an installation or just using Linux off of the floppy drive) and if you are looking for something command-line based or something graphical. A really good floppy-based Linux distro is tomsrtbt (Tom's Root/Boot). I use this for system troubleshooting among many other things.

These sites has a lot of good candidates for a floppy-based distro:
http://users.sunet.com.au/~tsn/floppy_linux.html
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Floppy/

The only one I have tried is tomsrtbt, and I'm not sure if it provides Internet access capabilities. I have seen some that do, though.

I hope this is along the lines of what you are looking for, and I hope you find the links helpful.

Take care.


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## 614cooker (Aug 21, 2006)

what i mean is a linux that i can install with floppy disks.


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## CouchMaster (May 26, 2003)

Gawddd... - thats what the links InterKnight gave you do, Linux on a floppy. Windows 3 will go on there!


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## 614cooker (Aug 21, 2006)

sorry i did not relise


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## Squashman (Apr 4, 2003)

Non of those distributions really are going to be useable for you though. You do have other options for installing Linux without a CD drive. There are some tutorials out there on how to Install Damn Small Linux with floppies but it is alot of floppies. You could get a PCMCIA cd-rom and install DSL from that as well.

Here are some instructions for network install.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/network-install.html


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## 614cooker (Aug 21, 2006)

ok guys thanks for the help.


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## blacklisted (Aug 25, 2006)

Hi.
I have kind of made a Linux floppy install.
Equip yourself with some patience...
I had to do it this way because the old lap top I wanted to install on had no cd-reader, net-card or firewire only a floppy drive.

My target computer did not have an OS either so I first installed DOS 6.22
I partitioned a part of the disk to 150MB and the rest 300 MB for windows using fdisk.
I then installed win 3.11 (win 3.11 is not necessary for the linux install)
Next I downloaded the Damn small Linux.iso (48MB) and the boot floppy image onto my XP machine, 
I opened the .iso (MagicISO) and extracted the content. I split the resulting folders and files, 
using a program called splitz, which works both in XP, DOS and in win 3.11.

The result is 34 pieces which you have to transfer to the root of your target hdd (same as the one holding DOS or Windows, NOT the empty partition, that is for the Linux installation. After Linux install you can resize the partition and use all of the hdd for your Linux distro) using 2-3 floppies.

When all the pieces have been transferred, you can then join the pieces with Splitz.

The result now residing in your hdd root should be three folders with their content and a single file :
C:\boot
C:\KNOPPIX
C:\lost+found
C:\index.html

Now, write the floppy boot image to a floppy, put the floppy in the drive and reboot the target computer.
The floppy will find the boot files on your system and start a live DSL Linux system, from this system you can proceed to do an install to the empty partition.


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