installing an OS without CD-ROM : without, install, os

i appreciate the comments about upgrading--but points will be awarded to those who do not suggest that i upgrade anything, get a CD rom, or anything else. i'm looking to work on the system as i have it. i'm increasing the point value because it looks like i'll probably be splitting points to multiple answers which are useful to me.

01.04.2006 at 02:53PM PST, ID: 15612732

Rank: Sage

wesly_chen:

Besides Windows 3.1 (13 floppies), you can try the following:

blueflops is a two floppies Linux distribution with a graphical web browser
http://blueflops.sourceforge.net/

Accepted Solution

01.05.2006 at 02:45PM PST, ID: 15624043

Rank: Wizard

I ran Linux 1.2 on a couple of 4MB systems - it was very stable. It was installed from Slackware 1.0. That distro was capable from being installed entirely from floppy - the directory structure on the CD was broken into disk sets (floppies). I think Slackware carried on that process for a while - so a higher rev might work for you.

Assisted Solution

01.05.2006 at 07:33PM PST, ID: 15625939

veedar: DSL is a Credit-Card CD based bootable distro. You have completely missed the requirements.

I agree that something like DOS6.22 and Win3.1 would be the most optimal choice of an OS, but you'll need to find a copy of Office 4 or 5 to get your Word Processor and such on there.

If you go any other route for OS, the systems either won't support it, you won't be able to load it, or it will move at glacial speed ( be VERY slow ).

Assisted Solution

01.05.2006 at 07:51PM PST, ID: 15626000

Rank: Sage

wesly_chen:

Win3.1 has Wordpad for basic word processor.
The M$ Office for Win3.1 need more than 20 floppies. And it is very slow.

Assisted Solution

01.09.2006 at 04:25PM PST, ID: 15655812

Kingsize:

Maybe Tiny Linux would suit you, sir?

http://tiny.seul.org/en/index.html

Assisted Solution

01.10.2006 at 05:21AM PST, ID: 15659906

While we're all glad that you feel there was usefulness here, why the grade of "C"?

Our primary interest is to assist those that need it. A grade of "C" reflects that we were not very helpful to you. As such, we would have been happy to assist further with more details or would have answered additional questions that you had.

01.10.2006 at 12:24PM PST, ID: 15664640

is there a way i can change the C grade? i didn't really understand what i was rating or what it would be applied to when i put it down. i was thinking in general that most of the answers weren't that useful to me personally, as nothing really came up that i hadn't already considered. however, perhaps there are no better solutions out there anyway. now that i realize that the grade goes to all the answers, and not just a general rating for this thread (this thread i would rate C for anyone who has my problem--decent, but not that useful) i would change the grade to an A for the people who answered and their posts.

01.10.2006 at 03:19PM PST, ID: 15666467

Rank: Sage

jlevie:

As Page Editor I can unlock the question, allowing you to redo your accepted answers. If you'll post a reply to this I'll do so

01.10.2006 at 04:27PM PST, ID: 15667032

the_gentile: Please also consider adding to the thread if you feel that it would allow for us to provide you more information. Assistance to you, and a good reference for others is our first priority.

01.11.2006 at 12:11AM PST, ID: 15668699

yes, do so, i'd like to change it.

mburdick: more info etc. would be helpful once i actually start installing the OS--confronting problems that come up and figuring out what options actually work for my particular situation. i think perhaps that calls for a different topic/thread, as it would likely consist of things like "ok, i tried blueflops, and it told me 'error cannot read disc' so i tried ...." etc.

any thoughts?

01.11.2006 at 05:05AM PST, ID: 15669913

You could break it into different threads, but the solution as a whole would potentially be interesting to others as well. I say let's try to keep it as one thread, even if it takes a little while...

01.13.2006 at 05:11PM PST, ID: 15697782

ok, i'm going to continue at this thread.

i tired blueflops, which worked up thorugh the second disk, then it just kept saying "killed" over and over endlessly.

tinylinux is not very clear on exactly how to install it. i've made all the discs... the 12 it said, the one with root.gz and the one with bare.i ... none of them work when i start up with them in the drive.

i'm using freeDos right now... but i think there's something wrong with it because lots of dos programs don't work in it right (or at all).

any other suggestions for installing this stuff? i'm at a loss. i actually legally own windows 95--but i lost the cd. i have the codes and hologram stickers and everything. if anyone knows a torrent or somewhere i could download it... but then again, win95 might not be a good solution for this at all.

01.13.2006 at 05:38PM PST, ID: 15697918

Rank: Wizard

bare.i is likely a boot disk (it would be with Slackware). Be sure to set the Bios to boot off floppy first. Some of the others will be boot disks for other configurations (like scsi.i for if you boot from scsi disk). From your system description, I'd say that bare.i is the right one for you. Once it boots, it'll tell you what to load next.

Assisted Solution

01.13.2006 at 06:01PM PST, ID: 15698025

i have the bios configured to check floppy first, and i've been booting all sorts of discs.

i forgot to mention:
at one point i got L and then I and then nothing. this is thebeginning of a LILO, right?

01.13.2006 at 06:27PM PST, ID: 15698143

Rank: Wizard

Yes

01.13.2006 at 06:29PM PST, ID: 15698154

Rank: Wizard

Try booting the floppies on the machine that wrote them

01.13.2006 at 11:54PM PST, ID: 15699109

i don't want to install linux on the machine that wrote them... and i don't want to risk losing any info on that machine.

i tried writing the floppies from the old laptop, but the floppies it produced didn't work at all.

why is it stopping at LI?

01.14.2006 at 06:12AM PST, ID: 15699994

Stopping at just the LI on the screen is an indication of a problem with the boot loader code. duncan_roe's thought of trying to boot on the machine that wrote them is a good one. You won't be installing, just making sure you can boot... Floppy drives and disks don't always play nice when you move them from one system to another...

Assisted Solution

01.14.2006 at 10:49AM PST, ID: 15701300

mburdick: ok, i guess i'll try booting on my presario--but what will that do for me if it works? especially since i've already made the floppies on the old machine and they work even lless well?

01.14.2006 at 12:43PM PST, ID: 15701732

If the floppies boot on the machine that made them, then there's a problem with the head alignment between the source and destination floppy drives. Try a different machine to make the floppies.

If it doesn't boot on the source either, you might have bad floppies.

Basically, it's a troubleshooting step...

01.14.2006 at 01:08PM PST, ID: 15701807

Rank: Wizard