i just got a z505 series vaio which i do not have a cdrom nor fdd to boot the notebook hence giving me a a major headache to have linux installed into the VAIO.

Would appreciate those who have managed to install linux into VAIO to provide some help on how did you get this done.

Any reference or same install problem on other notebook are welcomed as well.

My system runs on:
Intel P3 800
128MB Ram
20G HDD
ATI Display
intel pro NIC

I also have a PC running win xp & slackware 10 on it

thanks a lot

can anyone help pls?

I've got a Z600TEK (similar to the Z505s) and have Mandrake 10 installed OK. Two non-destructive ideas: If you can, try and buy/borrow a USB floppy drive. You should be able to boot from this. If you can't do this, then maybe you could plug the Vaio hard drive into your PC and build a basic system on that. You'd need a laptop -> desktop HD cable which aren't too expensive. There's nothing special about laptop HDs and most should work on a desktop box. Mandrake should spot any hardware changes (i.e .now being plugged into a laptop) when you first boot.

I've tried a variety of distributions (including the normally excellent SuSE, v9.1) and had no luck getting several of them to even boot from the initial boot floppy. Mandrake isn't my first choice, but does the job.

HTH,
Robin

I've had a trawl: not being able to run SuSE riled me, and I thought there must be away to boot with more control over the installation process. Here's what I found. The notes on this page may help with a network-only install: http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html

I've yet to try them myself.

Post back and let us know how you got on.

cool!!!!

great site! i'm installing slack 10 now!! & the source is from the usb cdrom which refused to boot!!

thanks!