OFB Community Mailing Lists

[Bradly McConnell]

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:19:19 -0600, N. Thompson <n.thomp at sasktel.net> wrote:
> Ed Hurst wrote:
> 
> > Taking ideas here...
> >
> > I was given another Gateway Solo 2500 laptop, but this one has a dead
> > CD-ROM. It's wholly unlikely I'll be able to get another CD drive for
> > this. The price on one I saw was nearly $100 (I don't trust Ebay, so
> > forget that). If I get it running with something, I should be able to
> > connect to the Internet and download anything else I need. Since the
> > floppy still works, that's the only way I can get an OS started.
> >
> > Thus, I need an OS that can install from a few floppies (okay, up to
> > 10 is  tolerable for me). This thing has a P2/233Mhz, 96MB RAM, a
> > 3.6GB  harddrive, all the usual ports, including two USBs. I don't
<snipped>

If it has usb, and will boot ok from a floppy to check it out, I know
our local Compusa actually has USB 2.0 2.5mm HD enclosures for around
$20 with tax.  I picked one up and stuck a 6GB in it and it works
great.  Only the usb cable - no external power cables, so it's almost
like having a flash drive (but with more space, and a whole lot
cheaper - think, what would a 6GB flash drive cost - ick!!)  You could
use that to load a whole distro and work off of that to load it.

Brad