Installing Slackware with non-bootable CD or bootable floppy (but not both)

TiddlyPom · 03-22-2004, 08:26 AM

I have an old TwinHead laptop (circa 1992?) specification Pentium 90, 48Mb RAM, 2Gb hard disk (whoohoo! - all non-upgradable of course

) This was running Windows 95 but I thought it was a prime candidate for running office applications under Slackware especially with a lightweight X-Server.

The problem is...

It has a single slot for either floppy/CD BUT I don't have the original cable for connecting the floppy drive to the parallel port. Also, it doesn't support booting from the CD.

I do have an old parallel port ZIP Drive so downloaded ZipSlack and got that booting OK.

I would like to partition the hard disk as

/dev/hda1 1.8Gb mounted as / (formatted as ext3)
/dev/hda2 192Mb swap space

1) If there a way of me installing ZipSlack onto the hard disk (as, in effect, a cutdown Slackware release) so I could then upgrade to 'full' Slackware via RPMs?

2) The only other way I could think of doing it was to use something like FreeDOS and then:

i) Create a 1.4Gb + 640Mb FAT partitions

ii) Make /dev/hda1 a bootable DOS partition (yuk!)

iii) Copy the Slackware files onto /dev/hda2 under DOS (from the CD)

iV) Use LOADLIN to run the Slackware installer (would that work?) and repartition the 640Mb partition as swap + disk space after installing Linux..

Any other ideas (preferably not using DOS...)

aaa · 03-22-2004, 01:57 PM

Make linux partition.
Boot Zipslack. Format new partition ('mke2fs /dev/hda1' ?). Copy Zipslack to new partition:

Code:

mkdir /mnt/oldslack
mkdir /mnt/newslack
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/newslack -t ext2
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/oldslack
umask 000
cp -a /mnt/oldslack/* /mnt/newslack

Boot newslack w/ floppy. Install lilo to hd.
Boot newslack w/lilo with cdrom plugged in.
Mount cdrom in zipslack:
mount /dev/hdc[<-cdrom device goes here] /mnt/cdrom
Go in and install all the packages (example for just the 'a' group):
installpkg /mnt/cdrom/[where the packages are]/a/*.tgz

skog · 03-22-2004, 04:15 PM

another way:

there is a program you can install that allows you to choose what to boot from. search google for smart boot manager.

its a program and once it is installed when you boot you get a menu so you can select what to boot like harddrive floppy or cdrom.

i cant boot from my cdrom on my laptop either. this is the way i do it.

choose cdrom and install.