Probably a newbie question - searched & didn't find a ma

[fractalsphere]

I have a laptop that uses an external, PCMCIA CD drive - the internal one busted a while back and doesn't read any data.

I'd like to make this machine a dual-boot 2K and Knoppix auditor machine, but BIOS boot menu doesn't support PCMCIA devices.

The laptop won't boot off of the CD at all, which is easy to get around with Windows boot disks (installed easily), but I've not found, nor do I know Linux well enough (hence my plea for HELP!) at making a Linux/Knoppix boot disk and getting it installed on my hard drives other partition.

I've installed the XOSL boot manager, which should do me fine once I get knoppix installed. It also doesn't support external PCMCIA bootups, otherwise I'd be all set right now.

I'm looking for info on how to make knoppix install/bootable floppy or floppies to get it on a hard drive. Heck, I've even considered installing it on another PC and ghosting the linux and swap partitions into my laptop to just get it done.

So please, have pity on a long-time Windows network admin who's learning Linux currently.

Thanks!

Rich

[ockham23]

Can you boot your laptop over the network using PXE? If so, run Knoppix on another computer in your LAN, start the terminal server script, connect the laptop to the LAN and power it on. Maybe you'll have to use some cheat codes to get it to boot correctly.

If you're going for a hd install, Kanotix is the right choice. Kanotix is a Knoppix derivative designed for hd install.

[fractalsphere]

Can you boot your laptop over the network using PXE? If so, run Knoppix on another computer in your LAN, start the terminal server script, connect the laptop to the LAN and power it on. Maybe you'll have to use some cheat codes to get it to boot correctly.

Thanks for the quick reply!
I'll give that a shot, but will have to look up how to start the term service script on knoppix.

Ideally, a bootable CD would be fabulous for this laptop, but I still didn't get a straight answer to my question; is there a bootable floppy that will walk thru the first part of the install and recognize external hardware enough to finish the install from CD?

Rich

[ockham23]

The script is easy to find: Knoppix (penguin) --> server services --> terminal server. Give it a try, it's really simple.

I am not an expert on boot floppies but I understand that the boot image is too large to fit on a floppy disk. There are several other ways to boot Knoppix (e.g., from a USB storage device). More information on that in the Wiki; there is also a section on "poor man's install" (PMI), which includes running Knopppix from an ISO file on your hard disk.

Good luck!

[fractalsphere]

I finally got to borrow a replacement internal CD for that laptop and install knoppix properly, with no major workarounds!

So far it's been easy enough to get my bluetooth USB adapter recognized and working, plus networking. Working on wireless networking, but that may be another thread. i'm really not familiar enough with all of linux's commandlines.