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Linux on a Floppy: Intro to Mini Linux Distros
GonzoJohn writes: "If you've ever been stuck on the freeway with a flat tire and no jack, you know what it's like to have a Linux system crash and not have a boot disk. And although nearly every Linux distribution company asks you make a boot/recovery floppy when you install Linux for the first time, many users skip this important step. Out of the boot/recovery disk concept was born the Mini-Linux distribution." Read this article on Linux Orbit, with a brief intro to some of the mini-distros available.
When I want a boot disk I use SuperRescue. Nowa days every one has a cd burnner and CDRs are dirt cheap. Besides when was the last time you could find a blank floppy in less then 10 minutes?
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
Is what I use as my gateway. Boots off a floppy, runs on this crappy little 486, and firewalls me (to a certain degree) from a lot of crap out there.. Very useful for people with multiple PCs and a cable connection. Easy to setup and configure. Their website has a download of the floppy image, a manual and extras (e.g. drivers for network cards). Worth checking out.
The truth of the matter is that in a Windows NT or 2000 server you can boot the box off the install CD and run a repair utility.
So can all the linux distros I've tried.
freeBSD can be installed off two floppies and over the network, and it cannot be that hard to add to the floppy images enough functionality to add a repair program.
Again nothing that's not possible under your standard Linux distro.
Just because you don't know how doesn't make it impossible
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
CD drives are a waste of space on anything except desktop machines.
The tomsrtbt boot disk. IMO, is by far the best rescue disk available. In 1.44 megs of space they've managed to pack over 160 common utilities, and that's not including the kernel modules! You can grab a copy of the boot image at http://www.toms.net/rb/
This thing has saved my ass several times.
In this context fli4l should be mentioned. It's an amzing single-floppy distribution and while primarily targeting on router/firewall tasks it is very extensible. The reason it is not so very well known is probably the fact that most of it's documentation is in German. But it's definitely worth a look. Also check this.
--- censored
And lets not forget BusyBox - which makes most of these distributions possible. Even Red Hat boot disks use BusyBox these days.
Ra for Tom.
Cheers, Andy!
Andy Rabagliati
(this ones based on BSD IIRC)
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Wow you saved me having to write a post about this :) There is another great one i use called lbt (linuxcare bootable toolkit - which was the precursor of LNX-BBC) and you can find it here: http://lbt.linuxcare.com/. The other distribution is demolinux which needs a 700meg cd, but contains a whole operating system including KDE and Gnome that runs off the cd.
I did. It's actually really simple; put LOADER.BIN, DISKEMU1X.BIN and DISKEMU.CMD into the root directory of your CD, create a directory BOOTDISK where you put all those floppy images (my CD contains those: W98 bootdisk, MemTest86, Grub, PXE flash disks for Intel and 3com, Recovery Is Possible, TECHW0RM, a DOS network bootdisk, a floppy to reset the NT admin password; the rest, about 35MB, are filled with lots of tools). You then have to adapt DISKEMU.CMD to show a menu where you can select those images and finally call
mkisofs -no-emul-boot -eltorito-boot LOADER.BIN -hide boot.catalog -v -N -l -no-iso-translate -relaxed-filenames -J -R . > /tmp/bootcd.iso
to create the actual ISO. I can't give you mine (well, perhaps a stripped-down version), as it contains non-free software, and a few of those disks contain a German DOS, but I can help you with creating your own.
Suse has a bootable 'LiveEval' CD ROM (available as ISO). It has everything one needs; config is saved on some HD partition (this does not destroy anything). Of course, it won't boot as fast a floppy-based solution does.
Yet another BBC ("bootable business card") cd is maintained by redhat.de (german subsidiary).
Although aimed mainly at redhat users, it's pretty comprehensive and you can debug/fiddle with your other partitions (win32, ntfs). It's fairly up-to-date, also.
Grab it here
Details
Contents
Self extracting archive - run unzip on it to extract it linux.
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
I used to use Zip disks back in the day when you could reasonably do viable a viable installation (one with development tools, editors, networking, etc etc) on 100MB. The "rescue" disk and the drive wsas portable to whatever machine it was needed on, reasonably fast and was a writable medium for saving configs or other data if it was determined that the original disk was dead (yes, there was actually 10-20 MB of FREE disk space).
It seems like the last time I tried to make a boot disk this way I couldn't get a basic install to fit on 100MB.
Removable IDE sleds sound the ideal solution, but so many boxes don't have room for them. A bootable CD seems like the most portable, although it lacks a writable filesystem.
Hopefully this list is helpful to those of you just starting to think about tiny distros.
-- null
Therefore, it would have to logon as root (?),
Why? what reason do you need to add the overhead of login and user systems? what do you even need a shell for?
autoconfigure X11, and start playing.
again why? do you really need X? why cant you use microwindows or PicoGui? both of which are 9000% smaller and easier to use in a small environment than any X11 release. they both use the Framebuffer interface so will work on 99.667% of all current hardware and 40% of the old junk.
In addition, I would also put a 'autorun.inf' and copy of 'iview32' (win32 viewer) on it for those who shove it in and use with Winddows.
Fair, that means your CD has to be iso9660 filesystem. (Yes you CAN have a EXT2 cdrom... I've made them) you cant use Joilet.. Why? because you need to keep your kernel small, and your ram filesystem small (your entire operating environment has to run in ram) a kernel,filesystem,busybox and picoGUI with a custom slideshow app is easy to stuff on a floppy let along in ram. use MicroWindows if you want that homey X11 look and feel. Or better yet screw the Gui... use a simple C app written with the SDL library.. There's no reason to bloat up your project with a useless GUI (Unless you want to add a fill in this form and click here to dial and send me your info.... bla bla bla...)
Reccomendation? learn C, learn SDL (only a little needed!) and not only show off something that is 100% impossible with any current microsoft product but you also can brag that you completely designed it.
finally, if you write it in SDL only, and write the C app correctly, you can ignore putting a silly viewer app on there, and run the C app under windows after you compiled it under the free windows Gcc... Same views under both linux AND winblows... Something else that cannot be done with any Microsoft product.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I've looked into Pico BSD and the subject of floppy based BSD off and on for a couple of years. There's nothing going on there -or last I looked it was still dead.
Pico BSD is a defunct project and there were no surviving offspring. It's not being maintained, as the downloadable images all date from 1998. So it's unsafe in any setting you need a UNIX in, and pretty much useless unless you just get a thrill from loading a UNIX style OS from a bootable medium the rest of the world rememebers best as a vector for DOS viruses and typing 'ls' and marvelling at yourself. To handle and touch an OS this far fallen into decay and death has to be a kind of antiquarian's fetish. Before you sit down to type at the console, you should be sure to put on some harpsichord music and your favorite mauve satin smoking jacket. Atop your monitor should stand a seven armed silver candelabra and the room should be dark and cold as a tomb. Use a Ouija board to generate passwords.
Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere -
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried: "It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed -I journeyed down here! -
That I brought a dread burden down here -
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber -
This misty mid region of Weir -
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
I've checked for a floppy version of OpenBSD. Mr. De Raadt has expressed an unwillingness for OBSD to be floppyized. Some people were talking about it anyway but there was nothing going on, nothing to use. Since you are into BSD and haven't mentioned it I will assume that the floppy based Open BSD is still sharing a bunk with OBSD
With Linux on the other hand there are a number of robust open projects and commercial products that answer to the description of "floppy based UNIX router, that is actively maintained". I don't have to imagine them as still living, and harangue strangers about not forgetting them. They manage to attract a fair amount of attention to themselves without strident evangelizing.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.