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installing Linux on an old laptop


ilia_kr
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Hi there,

A friend of mine has an old netbook that doesn't have any CD/DVD-rom or floppy. It has USB 1.1 and a BIOS that doesn't allow booting from USB or network (not sure about the latter though). He wants to install Linux, because WinXP feels kind of a slow on it but the question is how.

We (he) need your help here. Please post any ideas, personal experience and everything relevant.

 

P.S.

We don't want to install Debian or Ubuntu by using their windows installers.

 

Thanks...

 

P.P.S.

This post is double posted at distrostop.org here.

 

 

[moved from Hardware by spinynorman]

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I can't think of a solution other than taking the drive somewhere else, installing a basic text-only system on it (with no specific drivers), and put the drive back in place, making sure (use UUIDs) it will be able to boot, and thus finish installation.

 

Yves.

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I am in the process of trying just what you want to do. The method I am trying is to copy the i586 folder from my pc's dvd over a network to the laptop. Once the copy process is complete I will add an entry to grub to point to the newly copied folder. Just how I'm not sure just yet but if you can wait a little longer I will work it out and post it all on here as 'Tricks & Tips' Assuming it works of course.

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seems to me this might be useful. though, i'm not sure how you would reference the iso if it were on a Windows drive (or if you can - not sure grub can read NTFS). This will work for you silver. ilia, you could try making a small temp ext2 partition (i think there are free windows tools for this) to hold the dvd iso for installation - that's just one idea.

 

(also, steve uses an external drive, but you can use an internal as long as you don't format that partition)

Edited by tyme
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