How to install puppy 3.0 on a compaq armada 4120

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dane47

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This computer starts and has Windows 98 PLus on it. I would like to install Puppy 3.o but am having trouble getting the computer to boot from the cd rom drive . I pushed f10 and ms dos and a spot that said enable/disable quick boot. I clicked on disable. All that did was make the computer recognize the cd in the drive and ask me what program I wanted to use to install Puppy.
I realize that I will inevitably have to accept the limitations of this 1980 computer but would like to install Puppy.
The bios version is 2.0.
 
Solution
On a machine of that age it's quite likely that your CD Rom drive will not support booting; a lot of Windows 9x installs required the use of a boot floppy that enabled CD Rom support.

You can still get Puppy installed by using a Boot Floppy which will then enable you to read the CD and run the setup from there. I'd suggest having a look at Pup4dos

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Pup4dos

And also these threads discussing the same problem:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/puppy-71/old-pc-no-cd-boot-broken-floppy-575576/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/puppy-71/install-puppy-on-old-laptop-but-i-cant-cuz-it-wont-boot-from-cd-518803/

I had to have a look at the specification for your PC...
On a machine of that age it's quite likely that your CD Rom drive will not support booting; a lot of Windows 9x installs required the use of a boot floppy that enabled CD Rom support.

You can still get Puppy installed by using a Boot Floppy which will then enable you to read the CD and run the setup from there. I'd suggest having a look at Pup4dos

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Pup4dos

And also these threads discussing the same problem:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/puppy-71/old-pc-no-cd-boot-broken-floppy-575576/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/puppy-71/install-puppy-on-old-laptop-but-i-cant-cuz-it-wont-boot-from-cd-518803/

I had to have a look at the specification for your PC:

http://gdgt.com/compaq/armada/4120/specs/

Looking at that it seems to be a 32Mb configuration. Puppy currently states it needs 48Mb to run. You might be lucky and get it running but even at the frugal size Puppy is I suspect you might find it almost unusable.

I'm a fan of system reuse but it might just be that Puppy will be to much. Depending on what you want to do there may be other lighter options out there.
 
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dane47_02

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I've investigated Tiny Me,Damn Small,Fast Linux and Distros Puppy but don't think they will do much for me either. The processor on this is 121.
I've decided to just play the old games that I never had the time to play from 1980 to 2000.There were a lot that I missed.After all this isn't my only computer
and I am surprised that it even turns on.
 

dane47_02

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dane47_02

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This is the best response.
 
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