Hacker X

Is this asking too much? I'd like to download some kind of core distribution through my dailup and install it without having to burn a CD. Tools for programming would be nice, but even a GUI desktop can wait until later. Just enough to start putting together a system for programming, internet, and other desktop uses.

I pulled out the drive from the i586 machine I want to install Linux on, and temporarily plugged it into the i586 machine I'm using now in place of the CDRom. This machine is running Win98. I'd like to download to the C drive, and install from there onto the D drive, then put the drive with Linux installed back on the machine I took it off of and have Linux working. Is that absurd or otherwise unrealistic? I know the other machine has different hardware, but I have it right here, so I know what's in it.

Maybe 20-40M would be ideal, just enough to finish downloading in a couple hours before the ISP breaks the connection. Or separate pieces instead of one big ISO image. Does this animal exist? Is there some reasonable way of doing this? Am I missing something obvious, or is it beyond hope?

ImNeat

If your BIOS supports it you can format DSL or Knoppix onto a pendrive then boot the OS from the pendrive. Using the liveOS you can then install any number of distros. The only problem with this method is it'll retrieve most of the install files from the internet. With dial-up that could be a long proccess.
Another option is to use a program like instlux - this is a great trick for people without a CD drive. But again - since you're running dial-up formatting even the basics could take a good chunck of time.
Hope this helps - good luck!

__________________
10" Sony Vaio SRX99P 850MHz P3-M 256MB RAM 20GB HD : ArchLinux
14" Dell Inspiron 1420N 2GHz Core2Duo 2GB RAM 160GB HD : Xubuntu

Hacker X

Thanks for answering, the pen drive is an interesting thought. Also as a "sneakernet" for xferring files between the two machines.

I'm not sure what the point of Knoppix is. It looks like it's 700M. Ideally, any file downloaded over a dialup should be 20M or so, maybe 30-40 if there's nothing that small. And it has to be useable from a HD.

Instlux looks like it could be very good. It looks like it's just what I'm looking for. Do you know anything more about it? The project looks kind of sketchy right now. Not much documentation, and when I clicked on the download file "linux", [EDIT: oops! not IE] FF got hung up trying to display it as a text file. But a working version of that idea would be much more convenient than downloading lots of packages one at a time.

ImNeat

Yea - not sure what I was thinking with Knoppix. DSL, or maybe even Puppy or Minimax are definitely better suggestions.

As far as instlux - I actually used it myself. Check out the workup here. My laptop doesnt have a CD drive and I was waiting on one to arrive. I found instlux and installed Ubuntu 5.10 problem free.
Basically what it does is install bootable files on your harddrive - so at the next reboot your bios "boots" the distro install files directly from your harddrive. A neat idea when it comes down to it. You then follow through the menus like a normal install and you're on your way. The only problem is all the files are downloaded from the internet. Pretty much the only option since you have no cd. You'll just have to do an extremely minimal install, then work your way up.
For me, I had windows on 1 partition, and had a 2nd partition for storage. I installed linux on the 2nd partition, and after finishing the install then next time I rebooted windows, instlux sent me to a great menu to remove itself from the harddrive. Everything worked flawlessly.

__________________
10" Sony Vaio SRX99P 850MHz P3-M 256MB RAM 20GB HD : ArchLinux
14" Dell Inspiron 1420N 2GHz Core2Duo 2GB RAM 160GB HD : Xubuntu