Boot From Diskette To Install From CD?

[username132]

If I want to install Linux on a wrinkly old (80 MHz) system without an option to boot from CD in the BIOS, can I use a floppy diskette to enable install from a CD? Installing OS from floppies is no fun

[budman7]

Yes, you can install from floppy.
There are distros that can be installed from one floppy.
What are the rest of the specs of this computer?

Check out this link
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=links#floppy

[username132]

No, I want a GUI. What I mean is, can I boot from a floppy and then INSTALL from a CD. Specs;
[*]AMI M912 v:1.7 Motherboard[*]Intel 80 Mhz Socket 3 486 Processor[*]7808 kb RAM[*](A 1.44MB 3.5$quot;
(C 2GB
(D CD 4x[*]1Mb Graphics Card

[budman7]

Look here for the smart boot manager.
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml

[username132]

So do I want to put Binary Linux: sbminst onto a floppy and boot from it? What is rpm?

http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/download.html

[budman7]

Are you using a Windows computer or a Linux computer?
If it is a Windows computer just download the .exe file, double-click on the download, and it will be sent to the floppy.

If it is a Linux computer, you will need to follow the directions on the first link.

p.s. which distro are you trying to install?

[username132]

Yeah, I'm using WinXP at the moment. Thanks for that!

I don't know what distro to install. I want a GUI... I mean Win 3.1 works super fast on this computer so there must be some old distro w/ GUI that'll run, right?

The thing that stops me in my tracks is when I come across all these separate "packages" that need to be installed and I need to type things like "mk dir\ghjz\weee +x -c /gg add yum yum"...

[budman7]

You will want to look at Damn Small linux, or one of the floppy distros that I posted earlier.

That old of a machine is not going to support much.
Did I read that correctly, you are using only 7 MB ram?