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Hello All,
I have just purchased an ancient notebook today for
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At least any "windowy" type of Linux. Yes, you'll have to find CDROM, floppy or scsi drives to really get any use or you can remove the hard disk and preload it on some laptop.
I don't offer any handholding on how to do this, just what you can do about it. Where to find said floppy drive? Ebay.
Bob
Hello Bob,
Thanks for the very quick response.
You are absolutely right about regular Linux (SuSe, Mandrake etc)needing more than 32Mb of RAM. The mailine distros seem to be becoming as bloated as windows these days.
However I was considering a mini distro such as Damn Small Linux which only needs 16Mb.
As these Mini- distros seem to appear (and disappear) so quickly I wondered if anyone had come across one that might suit my needs better - which are for very basic functionality but with some more contemporary features than windows 3.1 has to offer.
My main concern is with regard to the missing floppy drive. You are correct when you suggested I search eBay as there is no shortage of serial external floppy drives. However when my wife owned an identical notebook and needed/wanted an (external) floppy drive (long before she was my wife)she was told in a computer repair shop that she could only use a genuine IBM floppy disk drive.
I found this suprising for the following reasons:-
1. This would seem to be at odds with the concept of ''IBM Compatable'' that componants used be sold as in those days.
2. Floppy drives are so basic I have never had a problem interchanging brands when building a desktop PC (I must have built well over fifty by now - I have lost count!)or replacing a drive.
Personally I think that what she was told was totally incorrect(for external drives) but being a newcomer to the world of portable computing I wondered if this was some factor that I was unaware of.
Obviously for internal drives I accept that the design of the notebook may well limit componant choice to the manufacturers part.
Any further thoughts would be welcomed.
Trevor
You may be comparing desktop components with laptop components? If so, it will take just a short while for the reality to sink in. There was no reason to make parts interchangable between makes.
Today, the floppy is very dead and the USB floppy is useful on newer laptops without much ado. That machine is unlikely to be able to use such as a boot medium.
Distros come and go. So find one and save it for your use.
Bob
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