The future of Diskette bootstraps

[Jeff Vian]

david wrote:

> At 02:55 PM 5/17/2004, you wrote:
>
>> david wrote:
>>
>>> One of my systems does not support CD-ROM boostrap.  FC1 provided a 
>>> bootstrap diskette which solved the problem, and let me install from 
>>> the network or from CDROM, both of which worked for me.
>>>
>>> Is this capability going to be maintained in future version of Fedora?
>>>
>>> If not, is there some option that would work?
>>>
>>> David Kurn
>>
>>
>> I would presume that boot floppies should be around for a little 
>> while longer but floppies are too small to be used much longer.
>>
>> I have been noticing more and more computers being sold that don't 
>> come with floppy drives anymore. I'm not just talking about Mac's 
>> either. We have a bunch of little machines we use for single purpose 
>> servers, and they don't come with a floppy or CD, so we hookup a CD 
>> to get the install started and do a network install.
>>
>> Good luck.
>
>
>
> -----------------
>
> I got several responses to this (you guys are great), but maybe I have 
> to refine the problem space better.
>
> Dell Workstation 400 MT, which I use as my crash-and-burn test machine.
>
> Pentium II 300, yah ... old machine
> No USB
> No Network boot (as far as I know)
>
> I've seen only hard-disk or diskette boot.  And with these 
> constraints, I've been able to load up W2k, Windoze XP and Fedora Core 
> 1, because each of them has a diskette bootstrap method.
>
> It seems to me that what's needed is a relatively simple and 
> OS-independent diskette which takes the diskette bootstrap, and turns 
> it into a CDROM bootstrap.
>
> Or, rescue the hard-drive and toss the computer?

:-)  yep, let the old dog lie.  :-)

You could turn it into a fun machine for your kids if you let them use 
windows or an older version of Linux.

Seriously, this is likely the best option (if big enough to matter). 
Hardware is going away from floppies and the distro boot files are 
getting big enough that unless you can boot from a CD or network, you 
can't install.  Without USB it puts even more of a limitation on you.