[CLUE-Tech] booting CD based Linux from old machine

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Fri, 2003-09-19 at 17:36, Jed S. Baer wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 15:08:46 -0600
> WFT <wft at frii.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hello TUX
> > 
> > I have an older machine that does
> > not have a BIOS that supports booting
> > from a Knoppix CD.
> > 
> > Is there a floppy image that will auto-run
> > and allow booting from a CD ?
> 
> Use a running machine. Mount the KNOPPIX cd. Read the
> /KNOPPIX/index_en.html file -- it has directions for making a boot floppy,
> and the image is on the CD.

It should be noted that performance using this method may be *really*
slow -- since the odds are that a machine that can't boot from CD-ROM
will also be on the very slow side. (Running Linux on older computers
isn't that slow -- but running from CD-ROM is inherently slower than
running off of hard disk...)

You might want to look at the file /KNOPPIX/knoppix-cheatcodes.txt,
which contains some options that can be passed at the boot prompt.
Specifically, you might want to try the "desktop=xfce" "desktop=icewm"
or even "knoppix-txt" to avoid X altogether. Using a lighter window
manager, or none at all, will boost the performance a bit. 

Good luck,

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net