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    Installing distros without everything...

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by rooneyrox, Nov 19, 2008.

  1. rooneyrox

    rooneyrox Notebook Guru

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    hi guys, I'm in a very frustrating situation...I would like to install a linux distro on my VERY old laptop running win98, but there are major problems that I'm facing:

    1. The CD drive is not working. I thought about using an external CD drive but win98 wouldn't recognise it without the proper win98 drivers.

    2. My laptop cannot boot from USB.

    3. I'm not tech savvy enough to remove the hard drive and plug it into another computer to install the distro.

    4. I read about network install on some sites but I still don't understand how it works and I'm not sure if it would work in my case. It would be great if someone can enlighten me on this.

    however, i still have a working floppy drive if that's of any help.

    any help would be much appreciated...thanks in advance! :)

    milt
     
  2. fs005

    fs005 Notebook Consultant

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    try UNetbootin (unetbootin.sourceforge.net)
     
  3. rooneyrox

    rooneyrox Notebook Guru

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    Does it support win98? Cos the min requirement seems to be win2k...
     
  4. Algus

    Algus Notebook Deity

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    You're probably going to have a hard time finding something like that. There are some active distros that work off of floppy disks but they are mainly emergency distros for trying to recover from catastrophe.

    This might be a helpful read for finding a distro you can use on floppies

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_Linux

    I also found this distro with a google search. Never heard of it though.

    http://blueflops.sourceforge.net/
     
  5. fs005

    fs005 Notebook Consultant

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    I'm sorry, did read win2k. Not shure if it will work with win98, but you might want to try this: howtoforge.com/unetbootin_windows_ubuntu_fedora#comment-3971
     
  6. rooneyrox

    rooneyrox Notebook Guru

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    thanks for the replies...

    i'll have a look at the floppy distros and unetbootin first...

    will get bk to u guys soon!
     
  7. Charr

    Charr Notebook Deity

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    If they laptop supports USB sticks, you could chainload from the floppy to a USB stick.