[CS-FSLUG] What would you do?

[Alvin Smith]

On Monday 31 January 2005 06:54 pm, Ed Hurst wrote:
> Taking ideas here...
>
> I was given another Gateway Solo 2500 laptop, but this one has a dead
> CD-ROM. It's wholly unlikely I'll be able to get another CD drive for
> this. The price on one I saw was nearly $100 (I don't trust Ebay, so
> forget that). If I get it running with something, I should be able to
> connect to the Internet and download anything else I need. Since the
> floppy still works, that's the only way I can get an OS started.
>
> Thus, I need an OS that can install from a few floppies (okay, up to 10 is
> tolerable for me). This thing has a P2/233Mhz, 96MB RAM, a 3.6GB
> harddrive, all the usual ports, including two USBs. I don't have access to
> a USB drive, so whatever I use has to actually install from floppies with
> enough utilities to format the harddrive (currently FAT 32), make it
> somewhat useable and have sufficient drivers to recognize when I plug a
> modem into at least the COM port, if not the PCMCIA slot.
>
> What would you do?

I think I would attempt a netboot install:

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-rescue-boot.en.html#s-boot-tftp
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-install-methods.en.html#s-install-tftp



-- 
peace,
Alvin Smith
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The Shenandoah Valley Linux Users Group
Winchester, VA  USA
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