HD Install :: How to install DSL to HD if BIOS can't bootable CD



You can also use "loadlin.exe" to boot DSL on your hard drive -without- a floppy drive, -without- rebooting, and -without- creating a Linux partition, thus leaving the floppy drive and cd drive free for other uses.

"loadlin.exe" basically clears DOS from memory and loads Linux instead without having to re-boot, so you can launch it with a batch file from the c:\ prompt.

I started another thread "booting DSL from DOS" that describes how I'm doing it.  So far it works pretty well, but since I don't know much about Linux or DSL I haven't been able to get my sound card to function...  (any DSL experts care to advise?).

It should also be possible to launch DSL from a CD that is not bootable (like my old notebook) with "loadlin.exe", but I haven't figured that out yet.

Yet another possibility is using "colinux" which allows launching Linux from within Windows.  I've only played with this a little bit with a distro called "Topologilinux".

The small size and minimal hardware requirements of DSL give you all sorts of options.

Paul
If you want to boot up DSL straight into TEXT mode (keyboard) without windows or moune, boot with:

dsl base 2
Quote (bigkahuna @ Jan. 15 2005,23:58)
I'm running DSL with a poor man's install on my old pentium 133 noteboot (40mb, 2gb, dos/win95).

2.  Boot from dos with loadlin.exe.  I'm working on this.  It works but the init settings and devices aren't setting up automatically.  I'll eventually get it right and this will be my preferred way to run it.  Why?  My floppy drive and CD drive share a bay in my notebook and it's not hot-swappable.  So what ever I boot with, I'm stuck with.  I'd rather keep the CD drive in and free to play audio CD's etc.

Paul,
I am running DSL on an old Pentium 133 notebook with MS-DOS/MS-Win95.
I copied the whole DSL CD on the HD (hda2 in my case), resulting to 2 directories: \boot and \KNOPPIX

Then this loadlin.cfg file worked for me:
------- loadlin.cfg ------------------
\boot\isolinux\linux24
ramdisk_size=100000
initrd=\boot\isolinux\minirt24.gz
#root=/dev/hda2
root=/dev/ram
rw
init=/etc/init
vga=xvesa
lang=fr
apm=power-off
nusb noagp nofirewire
#noapm
#nomce
keyboard=be-latin1
----------------------------------
I had to start in DOS with a minimum config.sys.
loadlin @loadlin.cfg

HTH

Daniel
Merci Daniel,

Your config works for my system as well.

Question:  How do I set xvesa, screen resolution, color depth, and mouse from the boot up?  It still asks for these settings during the boot process.

Thanks,

Paul
Quote (bigkahuna @ Jan. 20 2005,18:42)
Merci Daniel,

Your config works for my system as well.

Question:  How do I set xvesa, screen resolution, color depth, and mouse from the boot up?  It still asks for these settings during the boot process.

Thanks,

Paul

When you are satisfied with your configuration, save it to the HD:
DSLPanel->Backup/Restore->Device: hd?? [Backup]

Next time you boot, DSL will see the saved file, and restore your configuration without asking questions...

NOTE:
Curiously, the DOS boot HD is under /cdrom, read only.
So, in order to be able to write on it,
I added: sudo mount /cdrom -o remount,rw
in: .bash_profile
and: /home/dsl/.bash_profile
in: filetool.lst

I don't know how to change the owner or the permission of /cdrom, so I have to 'sudo' all saves to it...

Daniel
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