Old Laptop

[lymponus]

New question--how can you install Linux on an old laptop that doesn't have a CD-ROM drive? Can you use a NIC PCMCIA card and install it over a network? Do you by chance know if there may be a HOW-TO for this?

Thanks guys.


"Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never give in!"
-Sir Winston Churchill

 

[jlanka]

probably easiest to get hold of a parallel CD-ROM drive.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[poorboy]

There's a few ways. You can indeed use a PCMCIA NIC to install via ftp/http/nfs or whatever. That should go pretty smooth, if your PCMCIA controller and NIC work with the distro drivers - check for boot/driver disk images. Just share the distro DVD via a webserver or ftp server, or give the lappy a gateway to the 'net and install directly from the web.

Worst case scenario is install via serial or parallel port (SLIP or PLIP respectively). Same deal, just takes a bit of setting up to get routing right.

There should be something on at www.tldp.org, but a basic network install will be covered by the distro documentation.

<i>Knock Knock, Neo</i><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by poorboy on 03/26/03 12:22 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[silverpig]

Do a SuSE ftp install.

Read about it at suse.com

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.