install ubuntu without CD-rom drive?

Tod Merley todbot88 at gmail.com
Sat Sep 9 07:55:21 UTC 2006


Replies at bottom:

On 9/8/06, JeremyWorst <ulist at gs1.ubuntuforums.org> wrote:
>
> Tod,
>
>
>
> The laptop, a Toshiba 3110ct ultraportable, has an external CD drive
> connected via a PCMCIA card, and CMOS provides no option to boot from
> CD drive.  It allows boot from floppy, Hard drive, and LAN, only.  I
> followed the instructions for netboot, trying to set up a DHCP server
> on my Win XP Home desktop.  I thought I set everything up correctly on
> the desktop, and the laptop dutifully looked for it at bootup but never
> found it, the laptop never showed up on tftpd32.exe.  I do have Windows
> ME installed on it right now but would like to get rid of Windows
> completely.  The hard drive is too small for more than one OS.  I'm
> looking into installing form floppies.  Any other ideas?
>
> Jeremy
>
>
> --
> JeremyWorst
>
> --
> ubuntu-users mailing list
> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>
Hi Again Jeremy!

Two things:

1. Memory!!  I hope you have the max. (128mb) but I would guess that
you are at at the original (64mb).  That is not enough for Ubuntu.
Even 128mb is too small for a decent graphical environment (but could
probably be done).  Probably time to go to www.linux.org >
Distributions : English : minimalist.  There are several ( tomsrtbt is
well known: http://www.toms.net/rb/ ) which fit on one or two
floppies.  Perhaps you can use one of them to load - say Puppy Linux
which, once on the HD could easily be happy with the 64mb.

2. I note that the normal box comes with a CD (pretty common).  You
mention one which attaches through the PCMCIA bus.  Well, I wonder if
you could find something a bit closer.  It is hard to believe that a
computer actually cannot boot from CD.

3. You might be able to use one of the minimalist "one floppy" distros
to or Linux on another computer to make a boot floppy which
establishes a boot from your CD.

Good Hunting!

Tod




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