Description of problem: unable to install using floppy disk(s) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): n/a How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. look for floppy images in order to perform network install via ftp/http 2. can't find any 3. can't boot installer on a system with no CD/DVD drive Actual results: can't boot installer using floppy Expected results: being able to create a (set of) floppy disk(s) to boot the installer Additional info: there are systems out there without CD/DVD driver where users would like to install gnu/linux using a bootable floppy disk and perform a network installation
Unfortunately, this isn't doable due to the increase in size with the 2.6 kernel. For systems without a floppy drive, other available options include a) Using diskboot.img on a USB pendrive or similar b) PXE booting c) Booting the kernel and initrd from an already installed linux system
There is a relatively simple solution which is adopted in Debian. a) minimal floppy installer with ONLY hdd drivers, possibly based on very old kernel. b) disk image split over floppies 1) boot from a 2) a automatically demands b and copies to hard disk 3) boot from hard disk. Thus the 2.6 kernel doesn't have to be written to disk. There should be other variations on the "just enough to get it written to disk", probably even ones which could be written in a short number of instructions e.g. - split the installation image across a few disks - take a rescue floppy and boot from it - make a free partition - copy the disks to the hdd - insert floppy 1 dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/hdaX - insert floppy 2 dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/hdaX bs=1024 skip=1440 - insert floppy 3 dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/hdaX bs=1024 skip=2880 .... - rinse and repeat - insert boot floppy with GRUB. - boot into GRUB - use grub to boot from hard disk. Never tested and no idea if this would work with the current images, but it's worth a go.