I’ve come across an old PC at work. It’s a Win 3.1 386 with a 400 MB HD. I thought I’d reformat the drive and make it a “play” Linux box. Two problems: No CD ROM to install from and small HD size. Assets: Ethernet card, although it’s coax or thinnet so, from what I understand, it’s limited to 1 mbps. I may be wrong on this, let me know. Also, we have a Zip drive at home that we could hook up to it for install or maybe even run Linux from the Zip drive, if that’s possible.
Does anyone know of any small Linux packages that I can use to mess around on this thing and the best way to install it? I know they have a couple mini-distros that are basically just the kernel and you can run them off of floppies, but I’d like a little more than that. I want to at least have network support so I can hook in into our home network and be able to load a browser on there for the kids to mess with. (Keep em off the adult’s computers! Ha!)
Most distros will install via FTP, as long as you have
the boot disk. I’m pretty sure RedHat will, and I know Slackware will.
The thinnet will do up to 10 MB/s, which is a LOT.
No worries on that score. Your connection to the internet,
over which you will install the files, will be way slower than that.
ModernRonin, thanks. I have a DSL connection, so that shouldn’t be a problem. But actually, I thought network installation meant that you were installing from another computer on your network, so you answered two questions in one.
Now if I can only find an adapter to go from my router (standard ethernet ports) to the coax card I’ll be in business…
Of course they’re not much good without many megs of supporting software, they’re mostly intended for minimalist systems like simple routers, etc. But this should get you something to play with.
Oops, I figured I better clarify that. That page contains links to several linux distros that run, in their entirety, ON a single floppy disk. The floppy disk IS the whole Linux system.
Other distros can install from one or two floppies, if they have a net connection to get the rest from. Check into BSD, they can install with only 2 floppies and a net connection.
