How do I...

[darkeen]

Install linux to a drive for use on another system?

Ok so I've got an old (OLD!!!) ibm laptop that has no cd drive, no floppy drive and a non bootable usb slot. So, I'm thinking it should be possible to pull the drive and install from another machine, but that raises the question of how?

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[longblock454]

What distro you planning to run? If your laptop is that old it might not be worth the trouble!

But anyhow, if you could match the ide controller you could pull the laptop HD and install on external hardware then put it back in.

 

[Carlosinfl]

Honestly the best suggestion is do do a USB CD-ROM.

 

[longblock454]

Honestly the best suggestion is do do a USB CD-ROM.

He says above its non bootable USB.

 

[Carlosinfl]

Sorry - I missed that.

 

[Boomslang]

Can the machine perform network boot with PXE?

 

[darkeen]

What distro you planning to run? If your laptop is that old it might not be worth the trouble!

But anyhow, if you could match the ide controller you could pull the laptop HD and install on external hardware then put it back in.

I was hoping to put damn small linux on there. So how would I go about installing it to an external drive. That is, how do I stick the files on there such that when the drive is back in the laptop it will boot and work?

Also no PXE will not work, this thing doesn't even have an ethernet jack :/

 

[tom61]

I think installing the thumbdrive image of DSL to a USB connected box with your laptop's hd in it will work. If not, there's the roundabout way of installing DOS to the drive, and then using loadlin to start DSL(this is how I have it on my Toshiba Libretto).

 

[djBon2112]

Best bet? Put the HDD from the laptop into another computer, remove/disconnect all other drives, and install the distro to that HDD like normal. For most distros, you should be fine to just take the drive out and put it back in the laptop and it will run fine.