[Gllug] single boot disk install

[Richard Jones]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 10:29:03AM +0100, Tethys wrote:
> 
> Andrew Halliwell writes:
> 
> >I doubt there're many boot floppy installs now that DON'T require module
> >floppies, mainly due to the size of the modules and vast number of them.
> 
> The problem with that was that at the time[1], there was no Linux support
> for the Libretto floppy. So while the BIOS could boot a kernel image
> from floppy, anything that relied on kernel access to the floppy (for
> example, a second disk) wouldn't work. Thus the need for a single floppy
> PCMCIA aware installer...

Mmmmm ... Sounds similar to the problems I had installing Linux on one
of those tiny sub-notebook Vaios circa 1999. USB floppy (not supported
under Linux at the time, but the BIOS would boot a Linux floppy).
CD-ROM was very strange (some sort of PCMCIA proprietary connector)
and not supported by Linux either.

Ended up copying the distro to the hard drive using Windows,
installing Linux on the second partition, then wiping the first
partition (containing Windows + the distro install files - no longer
needed) and mounting it as /home or swap or something.

Apparently Linus had a similar Vaio and similar problems
[http://old.lwn.net/1999/0610/kernel.php3] and that inspired him to
"deal with" the parlous state of USB & PCMCIA at the time.

Rich.

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