Dual Booting with VERY minimal installs

[Calum]

i have not tried either method, but both are worth a shot. i don't know how easy it will be to make single floppy versions of either, i used this disk image from powerload and made a DOS disk using dd.

then you use the basiclinux 'make_fd' script to make the two floppies, using the DOS 5 disk as disk one, and a blank disk as disk two.

If you want a hard drive installation of basiclinux, you must boot from the loadlin version of basiclinux which runs in the ramdisk (using boot.bat) then, you must run the bas2hd thing, then you must copy the kernel from the directory that you have boot.bat ininto /boot. you then edit the boot.bat script to point to the new location of the kernel and bob's yer uncle! you can use the floppy version to install to the hard drive too but it's a red harring since the kernel is not compatible with the floppy > hard drive version for some reason.

i installed icewm on this computer now and i am looking for a small file namager. i am about to try xfm. looks like a lot of stuff wants me to have GTK+ installed. is it big? also will it have any dependencies that i will need to fill? i looked at the download page at gtk.org but they were a bit vague on both counts.

void main once more thanks for the advice!  

[Calum]

nope, i've had it up to here.

both laptops now have a habit of switching themselves off or hanging unexpectedly.

i suspect hardware, as they have no software in common. for a fact i know the 'big' laptop has a dodgy power supply, and i suspect the battery (although i suppose it could be software as it happens more in windows) on the smaller one.

I'll get the power thing fixed on the big one and then sell them both as i am fed up with laptops.

the problem is that my girlfriend and i both start studying in february and so that gives me six weeks to get us preferably two new computers using roughly no money.

i will have to use the money from the sale of these laptops to buy a new desktop and maybe another second hand laptop (grrr!!!).

I really can't be arsed with this.

anyway, that's the update. just to ask, what's the site that tells me if i am getting a linux compatible desktop again? i will be buying from Maplins i think and they tend to be very good at listing full spec of all the gear, and they#ll happily sell you the machine in bits and let you assemble it yourself.