HD Install :: Frugal install?



Here's the situation:

I have a Fujitsu Stylistic 1000 (486DX-100, 8Mb RAM, and a 180Mb HD) that I'd like to put some flavor of linux on.  DSL looks like a good choice (other options are smaller, like jailbait, but probably involve too much modification).

The HD is a Type III PCMCIA card.

Here's the plan:

1) Pop the 180Mb card into my laptop (with XP).
2) Boot laptop with something like Knoppix (this works, recognizes the PCMCIA HD)
3) Install DSL onto the PCMCIA hard drive

I know how to do this if I were installing it on the laptop, but I'm not sure about doing it on the PCMCIA HD.  Can I use some variant of the 'frugal install' that I can't seem to find directions for? (link anyone?)  Will I have major problems running LILO and trying to convince it to NOT modify my laptop?

Would anyone be willing to point me to (or write) explicit instructions?

Thanks in advance.

OK, well, I went ahead and tried to install DSL on the PCMCIA HD for the fujitsu using my laptop...

Made the 3 linux partitions...
Ran frugal_install.sh

This all ran fine and smoothly - no errors.

The final result?

1) The PCMCIA HD that I did the frugal_install on won't boot the fujitsu (OS not found).

2) The laptop MBR is now FUBAR'd, so now it won't boot into windows.  (Fixing this now).

(Yes, I installed to the PCMCIA HD, not to the laptop HD)

Not exactly sucessful.

Is there any way to 'force' frugal_install.sh to not run LILO?
Is there a better way to do this?

Instead of doing a Frugal Install, try manually doing a Poor Man's install.

Copy the contents of the CD over to your C:\ drive so that C:\KNOPPIX contains your CDROM's \KNOPPIX directory.

Then create a boot floppy disk per the instructions.

Boot from the floppy and it will find that C:\KNOPPIX contents and boot from there.

Unfortunately, I don't have a floppy for this machine - that's part of the problem.

According to the LILO FAQ, I can run LILO on one machine for a drive to be installed in another.  I think I will try this...

Is there anywhere on-line that documents the poor man's install?  Searching the archive doesn't really turn anything up...

Poorman usually requires a boot floppy. That is why I wrote frugal. Since you already have the system installed on the pcmcia card all you need is the boot loader. You are right about lilo being able to write to another disk. The frugal script is just text. Take a look and hack it replacing the lilo with the drive letter of the memory card as it appears in the other machine. Cut and paste out that section and try it.  Good luck, let us know your results.
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