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Registered Member #97
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:40PM
Location:
Posts: 61
My brother finally got a new computer and he gave me his 7 year old Fujitsu. It currently runs windows ME, but I want to try installing Linux. It has 256 Megs of RAM and a Pentium III @ 1 ghz (I think). Any recommendations on which distro to use? I don't think I will do anything more than browse the internet with it, but I want to learn about installing and running linux.
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
If you are new to linux and want all of the wierd hardware (especially the wifi if it has some not well supported chip) I would recommend ubuntu or if you find that too sluggish xubuntu or the likes.
Registered Member #97
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:40PM
Location:
Posts: 61
Ok, I downloaded ubuntu, made a CD of it w/ Alcohol 120, and put it in the old laptop where I found out that the CD drive doesn't work. I tried several other discs that I know work and none of them did. The drive just clicks and whorls. So then I installed alcohol 120 on the old laptop and mounted the unbuntu image. I tried to use the "install in windows" thing, but after completing the "calculating checksums" I got an error message "Unable to access CD" or something like that. My question is know how do I install something on a computer with no CD drive, but it does have a floppy drive.
Registered Member #952
Joined: Mon Aug 13 2007, 11:07AM
Location: Finland
Posts: 388
I've also heard about making a bootable Linux USB pendrive. Check Pendrivelinux.com for instructions on how to put a Linux linux live distro on a pendrive. My personal preference for a distro on a such low memory computer would be Xubuntu. Here's a link to a guide on how to load Xubuntu on a USB pendrive and making it bootable.
Registered Member #97
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:40PM
Location:
Posts: 61
I made a bootable Linux USB pendrive that works on my new computer, but the old one doesn't have an option to boot from a USB drive. The old laptop can boot from the floppy drive, the broken CD-ROM drive, or the harddrive which includes "Bootable Add-in Cards" whatever those are. Any ideas?
Registered Member #260
Joined: Sun Feb 26 2006, 09:51PM
Location:
Posts: 17
What about a USB CD-ROM?
As mentioned above, some distributions offer boot floppies with network installs.
Debian, for instance, offers a floppy disk image for their network install. It can be found here. You will want to download the i386 installation for a Windows based laptop.
Registered Member #952
Joined: Mon Aug 13 2007, 11:07AM
Location: Finland
Posts: 388
G^3 wrote ...
I made a bootable Linux USB pendrive that works on my new computer, but the old one doesn't have an option to boot from a USB drive. The old laptop can boot from the floppy drive, the broken CD-ROM drive, or the harddrive which includes "Bootable Add-in Cards" whatever those are. Any ideas?
In my BIOS there's a menu for selecting whether to boot from floppy drive, CD-ROM, or harddrive. Then there's a 'hard drive order'-menu somewhere under advanced settings. There you can select between hard drives, which include also attached USB pendrives. Your motherboard manual would be good reading.
Also you could dry a bootable floppy & network install as reign suggested.
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Linux on an old laptop
