Very Computer

I am looking into running LINUX on my Dell 333s/L.  I have installed a
Syquest EZ135 Cartridge Drive, and my question is:  Can I install
LINUX on just this drive and then boot from a floppy, and use the
cartrige drive exclusively?  I don't plan on changing anything on my
normal 210MB (Pretty full) Hard drive.  I also realize that the system
may run slow, but I'm retired and aren't in any big hurry anyway. :-)

Thanks in advance for any clues you all might be able to give.

Bob Hansen.

I am looking into running LINUX on my Dell 333s/L.  I have installed a
Syquest EZ135 Cartridge Drive, and my question is:  Can I install
LINUX on just this drive and then boot from a floppy, and use the
cartrige drive exclusively?  I don't plan on changing anything on my
normal 210MB (Pretty full) Hard drive.  I also realize that the system
may run slow, but I'm retired and aren't in any big hurry anyway. :-)

Thanks in advance for any clues you all might be able to give.

Bob Hansen.

: I am looking into running LINUX on my Dell 333s/L.  I have installed a
: Syquest EZ135 Cartridge Drive, and my question is:  Can I install
: LINUX on just this drive and then boot from a floppy, and use the
: cartrige drive exclusively?  I don't plan on changing anything on my
: normal 210MB (Pretty full) Hard drive.  I also realize that the system
: may run slow, but I'm retired and aren't in any big hurry anyway. :-)
: Thanks in advance for any clues you all might be able to give.
: Bob Hansen.
You can if it's a SCSI drive -- I've done it.  If it's an IDE drive,
then I don't know.  And if it's a parallel port drive then I also
don't know, but almost surely not.  BTW, you can use linlod from
your DOS partition, if you prefer, rather than booting from a floppy.
Also, it's not all that slow at all: it seems to me to be about on
a par with typical ISA-based IDE drives.

: Thanks in advance for any clues you all might be able to give.

Quote:>: Bob Hansen.

*You can if it's a SCSI drive -- I've done it.  If it's an IDE drive,
*then I don't know.  And if it's a parallel port drive then I also
*don't know, but almost surely not.  BTW, you can use linlod from
*your DOS partition, if you prefer, rather than booting from a floppy.
*Also, it's not all that slow at all: it seems to me to be about on
*a par with typical ISA-based IDE drives.

Make sure you partition the EZ cartrige in FAT or EXT2, the ez's
partition is weird since it was made to be compatible with Macs... You'll
get some weird mounting error, so lowlevel the sucker and partition it

Quote:> I am looking into running LINUX on my Dell 333s/L.  I have installed a
> Syquest EZ135 Cartridge Drive, and my question is:  Can I install
> LINUX on just this drive and then boot from a floppy, and use the
> cartrige drive exclusively?

Sure, my roommate has an EZ drive, which I borrow from time to time for
backup purposes, and I've also made one cartridge with a full system on
it (sans X, but it has gcc and everything -- I even compiled a kernel on
it).

Basically, I put the cartridge in the drive, fdisk'd it to create a 5MB
swap partition, which left almost 125MB free for the Linux install.  I
didn't install from scratch, rather I just copied stuff over from my
existing installation and then weeded out stuff from the copy (it was a
bit cramped, but not really too bad).

Of course, it helped that I had an already running Linux system, but I see
no reason why you couldn't just boot Linux from floppies, fdisk an EZ
cartridge and then install from scratch on it.  Might be kinda fun,
actually...I might just try that.

Quote:> I also realize that the system may run slow, but I'm retired and aren't
> in any big hurry anyway. :-)

Mind you, this is all with a SCSI EZ drive; I can't see why it wouldn't
work with the IDE version, but I don't know about the parallel port
version (I doubt it).

One note:  I'm guessing from the model number (333s/L) that this is is a
386 CPU?  And that you might have only 4MB of RAM?  If so, then yes, it
will be slow, but faster than DOS/Win.  Also, with that little RAM, you'll
probably want a larger swap partition than 5MB, maybe 12MB or so.

-Jeff

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Senator Exon:

  When the Communications Decency Act passed, at first I didn't give a
rat's ass, but then someone explained the implications of the new law,
and I decided that I should.  Enclosed, please find one rat's ass.

                                        Sincerely,
                                        Jeff Garretson  

                     http://marley.hag.housing.washington.edu/jeffgarr

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