Linux on floppies for old pc

[Dias de verano]

A 540 Mb mid 1990s hard drive, if it spins up at all (if the lube hasn't all dried up) is not going to have much life expectancy. I would have thought.

[patio]

You have to start thinking outside the box........

[squall_01]

I was thinking about putting a bigger drive in it like 10 gb western.

[Dias de verano]

I was thinking about putting a bigger drive in it like 10 gb western.

You'll never fill it. The BIOS may not recognise all of it anyway. There was a 4096 cylinder/2.11 GB size barrier that became a problem around 1996. However, it may have a bit more life in it than the original one, which must be nearly old enough to vote!

How are you planning to get an OS onto it?

[squall_01]

Thats good maybe I'll use that 2 gb maxtor I have in place.  Floppies how else?

[Zylstra]

Floppies how else?

I think we ruled that out..
Any good descent OS with desktop interface is going to require at least 50MB... and I doubt you want to go through 50 floppies...
How about taking the drive out of the computer, and putting it in a newer one and setting it up on that newer computer, and then taking the drive back out, and putting it into the old computer...

[squall_01]

I thought about that but arent most like xp an sense hardware changes.

[Dias de verano]

I thought about that but arent most like xp an sense hardware changes.

Many older Linux distros arent fussy about hardware. Especially the little ones. They require an x86 cpu and a vga display and a small amount of RAM. Pre- 95 Windows is the same. I moved a WFWG 3.11 installation from a 486 Compaq to a P120 homebuild and it worked first time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_Linux#Floppy_disk_distributions

[Dead_reckon]

Linux is nice about running in a cramped environment like what a 486 would give it, but, a system that old isn't likely to have much use even if you got it working. You'd need an NIC or WIC for one if you want internet. That's if it has at least one PCI slot, if it only has ISA, your screwed.

[Dias de verano]

Come on, Dead_Reckon, surely you must realise this is one of Squall's "thought experiments". 

Anyway, I would think that an MS-DOS 6.22 and/or a Windows for Workgroups floppy set is a better bet. Of course there isn't any way at all of getting that, eh folks?

You'd need an NIC or WIC for one if you want internet.

That isn't exactly true. You could use a 56K modem hung off the serial port and get a dial up account.

[Zylstra]

You can legally download DOS 6.22 as far as I am concerned...

http://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

[Dead_reckon]

If someone says dial up again, I'm going to beat them to death with a phone book. So many awful memories of dial up on our first family PC so long ago... Anyway, you should ask Zylstra about his 4MHz IBM

[Zylstra]

Anyway, you should ask Zylstra about his 4MHz IBM

The beige beat of doom from 1986!
4MHz computer, 2MB of RAM, and a dead 80MB HDD.
Runs hard core Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, and DOS 5.0.
(Of course, the drive is dead... so, it doesnt really run any of that anymore...)

VINTAGE!

[Dias de verano]

You can legally download DOS 6.22 as far as I am concerned...

http://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

That one disk is just a boot disk with a few disk tools on it. It isn't the MS-DOS 6.22 full OS install, which is 3 floppies, 4 if you count the supplemental disk.

People who posted links to so-called "abandonware" sites on CH have been told to remove them... Has that policy changed? As far as I know MS has not made MS-DOS freeware. I know about the 6.22 upgrade \available for free download, but that requires an existing 6.22 installation.

[Zylstra]

You can legally download DOS 6.22 as far as I am concerned...

http://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

That one disk is just a boot disk with a few disk tools on it. It isn't the MS-DOS 6.22 full OS install, which is 3 floppies, 4 if you count the supplemental disk.

People who posted links to so-called "abandonware" sites on CH have been told to remove them... Has that policy changed? As far as I know MS has not made MS-DOS freeware. I know about the 6.22 upgrade \available for free download, but that requires an existing 6.22 installation.

Hmm... your right... thats not the full version.

Abandonwear... thats a bit of a gray line, and as far as I can tell, has never been determined.

But! Microsoft has released DOS 6.22 for free:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=96cc3197-b7e5-4b31-badb-ddaac771295f&displaylang=en
You could use a file splitting program that is compatible with DOS to get this on three disks...

If the Original Poster wants the Setup file in three diskettes, Lets NOT Tell the original poster to search for the following on Google:
DOS 6.22 Full Version download