Hi guys,

Is it possible to install DSL onto HDD (ext-3) using the iso images of the cd which are again on the HDD (Fat32)/USB (Fat)?

I kind of, don't have easy access to a cd burner yet.

yes.....
how big is the iso ? there usually aroung 50meg depending on the version.

anyways.. use "cfdisk" and add a parttion you your hard disk a little bigger than the ISO..
then copy the cd image directly onto that partiton.. with the dd command.

dd if=/path/to/cd-ISO-image of=/dev/hda1
replace hda1 with the partiton you just created.

if it completes without errors, and it reports the same blocks in as blocks out.. then it worked...
iif there was an error, delete the partiton, and start again with a bigger parttion.

congratumations.. that hard drive partiton is now a cd-rom drive as far as DSL is conserned.

now mount the cd-iso image...
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/cdrom

and look for a floppy boot disk.... it will be exactly 1.44 megs in size and named somthing like boot.img

when you find it, copy it to a floppy disk with the dd command again, reboot.. and select boot from floppy in the bios.

Thanks u so much,
Must say that was very ................................ educational. Actually i had tried copying the contents of the CD iso image (i.e. without using rawwrite). After copying all the contents (files and folders) of CD to USB. I created a boot floppy just like u said. Though when the system finally booted it entered DSL but kind of crashed when it couldn't find some files and folders.

What i assume here is that instead of the file-folder copy technique we should directly transfer the raw image of the cd-iso file onto hdd or usb drive using 'dd' or something similar.

I have posted a similar thread recently in this same forum. From here on lets discuss things there...:-)

Thanks once again,
Bye

haha,, a better way... what version do you have of DSL.
i just got the latest version.. it has a porgram (and a boot option) that will automatically install the program to the hard disk.

I have DSL(8) on my HD like that.Just put the KNOPPIX(from the iso) file in /KNOPPIX and you can boot the kernel and initrd of boot as usual.

FYI though, cant seem to save the configeration.

you need to pass the kernel option home=/dev/hda1 or whatever on knoppix.
or on DSP, install with the Enhanced option.

Did'nt work(even selecting restore from the menu).Though I'm going to try out the latest one today(I had to re-install FC1 and lost a good deal of my data).

BTW,my internet connection is nowhere near capable of the enhanced install.Does it make any diference concerning backup/restore?

today's my very first attempt at putting linux on an old pc i have...
i have xp installed, so i can move files to/from my main pc, partition magic so i can make the partitions i need for linux, and 7-zip so i can work with compression... I dont have a burner on either machines, and i dont know what anyone's talking about when the linux terminology is used...
my main goal in this whole thing is to offload some cpu-intensive apps to the linux pc, and have it feed the xp one... maybe later once i have an idea how to use linux ill switch entirely..but for now i want to run norton auto-protect on the linux machine, and have it feed clean traffic to the xp machine. I also want to run shareaza via remote and have it share over the network. i figure this will save a ton of cpu on the xp machine....
so could someone explain how to get dsl installed? im knowlegeable enough in windows to get just about anything resolved, and itd be cool if someone could tell me what the linux terminology is comparable to in windows, it'll help me figure out what i have to do in linux..
so far I've got xp installed on a fat32, and i can create the linux & the swapspace, but then what?
thanks