Linux Laptop w/ 3.5" Disk, USB, and No Hard Drive?

ryewell asks: "I have an IBM Thinkpad 390 Laptop, PII 266Mhz, 128 MB RAM, with USB 1.0 port and a 3.5 floppy drive being the most important stats I would assume for this question. So my hard drive died, and I've been using a DOS boot disk and a program called Mel to do my word processing.Would it be possible to boot the laptop in Linux using a 3.5 disk, then using drivers access the USB memory stick that had an adequate Linux system on it?" With USB thumb drives getting to be as large as 512 megs, memory sticks weighing in at 1 gig, and Compact Flash cards getting into the 2 gig range, this might not be such a bad idea. There's the Linux Mobile System that looks to implement something like this, but are there other distributions or similar projects that might be of interest? If you were going to put together a custom system for something like this, how would you do it?

"If Linux can be configured this way, I would need no hard drive, and the created docs/info could be saved on the USB drive memory stick. This way, no hard drive means no moving parts, which means better battery life, and I won't have to buy a hard drive which at the best deal I can find is about $130 US after taxes, shipping, etc. And how cool would it be to run a laptop off of a memory stick! Unfortunately, I know nothing about Linux, but this might be a cool problem to solve for those smart and knowledgeable enough to figure it out. Thanks for any help you can provide!"

Probably Knoppix

[mj01nir]

I run my hacked IA-1 appliance from 16MB Compact Flash using Midori Linux. Sadly, I think the distro is dead now.

Your best bet is to try Knoppix, assuming you have a CD-ROM.

Why Bother?

[Virtucon]

266MHZ? The time it would take you to get it
on the USB, dowload the software, configure it it would be a waste of time and money.

Figure labor as your biggest cost. Nobody's time is free. You can get a decent Laptop for less money. Put the laptop on the driveway and drive over it.

I've had three laptops in the past four years, the last two I owned aren't even good enough for my kids anymore.

quit being a cheap bastard

[kmcmartin]

and buy a new bloody hard disk. it would be far cheaper to buy a new laptop hard disk, than a 512M of usb storage. christ.

Why boot from floppy?

[john.mull]

If your BIOS will support it, why not remove the floppy from the equation and boot directly from the memory card/key/stick/whatever? A 1 GB key would allow for a Knoppix install and a good bit of data, and then you're word processing with Open Office.

Replace The Hard Drive

[SiMac]

On PriceWatch, a good 20GB drive will cost less than a 512MB USB memory key.

It's really not worth the amount of effort you'd have to put into this machine. I realize it's old and you don't want to waste more money on it, but spending hours of research to save $65 isn't worth it, especially considering even after all that research your computer will be slower and more of a pain in the ass than if you just spent the money.

No. Use PCMCIA.

[Anonymous Coward]

USB is the most retarded solution possible. Especially in a 266Mhz laptop, where the USB will be 1.1 and absolutely dismal to load an OS off of.

Instead, use the fucking PCMCIA slot for it's intended purpose. Find a flash PC card or CF adaptor and go to town. It'll be infinitely faster, and you won't have a stupid USB drive hanging off the side of your computer, Linux desperately sucking at it like trying to breathe through a Hi-C straw.

Re:Why Bother?

[BACbKA]

Put the laptop on the driveway and drive over it.

This is a strange suggestion in a post that advocates cost-saving measures, isn't it? The same laptop can easily be used as a diskless machine booted off the home network, mounting all it needs off the NFS.

Re:Why Bother?

[WindBourne]

For something like longhorn or XP or a full linux distro, I would agree with you, but I do have a stripped Mandrake on a 266 with 128 MHz. I would not run an action game on it, but for simple DE, it is not bad.

To be honest, I would rather use it for none graphical applications (web server, dns, etc).

Re:I would not use MemoryStick

[Amiga Lover]

I have a solution that's faster, relatively quiet, standard, works with many operating systems, is easy to find and not a difficult process to implement.

I'd replace the dead HD for about $15.

Knoppix + Boot Floppy

[nuxx]

I don't know why noone has said this yet, but why not stick a copy of Knoppix in one partition on a large USB keychain device and boot it using a floppy with a boot manager on it? Then use the other partition on the keychain device for data storage.

Booting Knoppix will eliminate the need for massive amounts of read/write, and you'd still have a bit of space to store whatever it is you are working on.

Card services and Hard Drives.

[twitter]

If you can get card services up with your boot floppy, and you should, it should not be hard to mount the CF as a disk there. Access time is faster than most CF devices and PC card adaptors do not require you to open the laptop.

I'd just get another hard drive. If the system does not have a CD, do the install on another machine, move it and tweak it as required. Mepis [mepis.org] and other Knoppix based distributions should work without much or any modification. Moreover, they should work very well on that hardware. For what it's worth, my 90MHz P1 Thinkpad is jealous of your memory and processor but happy with it's five gig hard drive and Woody. Save the HD caddy, if the yours has one! They are easy to work with, but hard to find.

Re:Cake

[drinkypoo]

And in case you're wondering, you can download all those files for linuxfromscratch from them directly, but you will not be able to download them all from their actual home sites.

Also note, you need to not have a swap partition :D

Re:Why Bother?

[Fizzl]

I've been using a DOS boot disk and a program called Mel to do my word processing.

And you suggest trashing his adequate-for-the-purpose machine and buying a top-of-the-line power hog would be saving in some sense.

On the topic of what time costs. I consider my free time absolutely worthless. I waste it on drinking, reading slashdot or watching cartoons anyway. I would find a nice hardware hacking project much more better value for my time than my usual activities.

I made Linux 2.2 (with some basic software) run on 25mhz 486dx with 8 megs of memory just for the challenge of it. Learned hell of a lot of how Linux works in the process too. I say, to the original author: Go for it!
#linux on IRCNet is very helpfull if you show atleast moderate experience so they can actually instruct you without teaching how to use an editor first.

I wonder what this post cost me. Took many minutes to proof read it, and actually check the specs of the old beast in the closet.

Re:I would not use MemoryStick

[Amiga Lover]

> I'd replace the dead HD for about $15

Reading, not your strong point.
From the article:
"I won't have to buy a hard drive which at the best deal I can find is about $130 US"

The article submitter's laziness in finding cheap HDs does not mean I cannot find them

Thus my original solution is still the same, and is one I implemented barely a year ago myself.

Re:quit being a cheap bastard

[kmcmartin]

funny. knoppix does just that, and doesn't rely on crappy floppy drives.

Go buy a replacement hard drive.

[Flower]

Even if it cost you a $130. You've said it yourself. You know nothing about linux but you essentially want to tackle turning your laptop into an embedded device. You're also trying to poll /. to find/create a solution for you. If you screw up the patitioning on your cf card do we get a new Ask Slashdot article?

Buy the drive, learn a thing or two about linux and then research this down the road. Honestly, this is the best advice I can give you.

Re:I would not use MemoryStick

[Pharmboy]

"I won't have to buy a hard drive which at the best deal I can find is about $130 US"

I just searched eBay, 680 listings in laptop hard drives, with buy it now for $20 for a 1 gig ibm. That took me an entire 20 seconds to do. I'm guessing he didn't look very hard.

Re:Why Bother?

[damiangerous]

Put the laptop on the driveway and drive over it.

WTF?! I was laid off six months ago, and I haven't found work yet, so as you can imagine money is extremely tight. I don't have a laptop, and I certainly can't afford one, but I'd still love to have something that would let me hang out in the bedroom with my wife and play with Python scripts while watching TV. Before you drive over another older laptop, let me know, I may be within driving distance to come take it off your hands and give it a good home. You seem to have a very different idea of "good enough" than I do.

Help me with my old car!

[realmolo]

See, I've got this old Chevy Nova. It runs fine and everything, but it's out of gas. Does anyone know of a way I could hook it up to my wood-burning stove?

This way I would save on gas money. Have you seen how much gas is?

/sarcasm

Buy a new hard drive, you cheap motherfucker.

Re:I would not use MemoryStick

[Vilim]

If you are going to use CF cards you have to make sure that you _DO NOT_ swap to it, CF, SD and company only have a finite number of writes to them. If it is an old laptop it will be swapping alot and your CF card will fry in a matter of weeks

I know of disasterous results where people have decided to swap to a memory card

Re:quit being a cheap bastard

[caswelmo]

Wouldn't it be kind of neat if you could just plug in your USB key from your keychain into any public (or private) terminal and be off & running with your own OS & all of your own customized settings, files, etc. Maybe you could even use your handheld as the "brains" of the operation.

This is asinine

[thedillybar]

If you value your time at anything more than about $0.50/hr, you'll find that the least expensive route is to buy a new harddrive.

You're going to have cost for materials anyway, maybe not quite as much, but still a substantial cost.

Re:I would not use MemoryStick

[Halfbaked Plan]

Depends. My 'old' PC laptop is an HP Omnibook 300. The machine with Windows 3, Word, and Excel in a ROM card. I replaced the PCMCIA hard drive awhile back with an 80 meg SanDisk Flash card.

It runs for hours and hours on four AA penlight batteries.

I'll give you one FREE

[Remlik]

How abou you just give me a mailing address and I send you one of the two old HDD's I have collecting dust beside me?

I have a Seagate 1.4gig and A Fujitsu 1.6gig. Both work. Hell I'll send both in case one fails in a year.

Sorry it doesn't solve your battery problem but at least you won't have to be screwing around with boot floppies and killing flash drives.

Geeze, for 130 bucks on Ebay you could probably buy and entire laptop which contains a 2-4gig HDD and just throw the rest away.

Work smarter not harder.

Re:BSD Laptops w/Gorgeous Babes!

[Chuck Bucket]

strong comeback, perhaps you're 16. as for my 'fucking problem', I can see beyond what you see there, I see a girl that needs too much attention for her own self worth. a needy sole like that will never make a good mate. beauty comes from within, and then appears to us; I see no beauty there.

regards,
CB