Re: tlug: Giving an old pc a new purpose in life?

[Jonathan Q <jq@example.com>]

On Mon, 13 Sep 1999, John Seebach wrote:

> As I don't have a CDROM, floppy, or a network card for it, I can't figure
> out how to get anything else on there. Getting linux onto this machine
> would definitely be an interesting exercise. The missing floppy would
> certainly add an unusual challenge.

Yeah, the floppy problem sure does add a twist.  If you have/get/can
borrow a supported PCMCIA SCSI card and a drive, I think (someone please
confirm this) you can use a bootable CD-ROM if your BIOS supports that
(it may not, considering its age; fire it up and see if the BIOS has a
boot sequence option that includes CDROM).

If you can't boot a CDROM, you may be able to start the install using
the loadlin utility to boot Linux from Windows, but I don't know if you
can use it to do a network install or not.  If you can, loadlin, a
PCMCIA network card, and a local box with the Linux CD NFS mounted or
set for anon ftp will do the job.

Of course, if you can find a floppy cable, that would greatly simplify
everything, since you could boot a Linux floppy then do a network
install.  A couple of junk shops you might want to check for that item
are VNC (Virtual Network Computer) and CompuAce.  CompuAce is a true
junk shop; VNC sells some junk, but also some older notebooks and a lot
of older UNIX workstations, mostly Sun and SGI, and reasonable prices.
Highest-end stuff I've seen in there was an SS20 with 125 MHz
Hypersparc, and an Indigo 2 with R4400/250 MHz.

> So, what would YOU do with such a beast, besides use it as a bookend? I'm

I would definitely find a way to get Linux onto it.  With careful
picking and choosing, you might even get a minimal X install in there.
I have TurboLinux 3.0J with X and Xemacs and the Japanese stuff on a 500
meg disk.  You do have to pick and choose what goes in, but it fits.
This is probably doable on a 360 meg disk, but will take more pruning.
Another alternative (without X) is Austin's own Green Frog Linux.

At least some big distros (Slackware, maybe Debian?) can be put all onto
floppy, so if you can get a floppy cable and have some time to kill, you
can do an install totally from floppy.  Maybe GFL can do this, too
(Austin?).

Austin, it's time to start writing a fancy installer to handle tough
situations like this one  :-)

Anybody wanna try installing Linux on John's notebook at the nomikai if
he can come up with a floppy cable by Friday?  :-)

Jonathan

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