[02:10] <philipballew> has anyone ever installed linux over a network. i might need to
[02:11] <rww> Depends on what you mean by "installed linux over a network". I've PXE booted Debian before, if that's what you mean.
[02:13] <rww> ( http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s05.html.en explains that pretty well, though I use dnsmasq instead of dhcp3-server)
[02:13] <philipballew> rww well i need to install linox on a laptop i was givin. but it doesnt have a cd drive and wont boot from usb.
[02:13] <philipballew> plus the hard drive screws are stripped so i cant take it out...
[02:14] <philipballew> its an old laptop. but i figured id set it up and ssh into all my computers i use for real stuff and run top on all thee ssh sessions to know whats goin on
[02:15] <akk> It doesn't have any linux on it yet -- this will be the first one?
[02:15] <akk> Can it boot from the network, or only from floppies?
[02:16] <philipballew> it also doesnt have a floppy drive
[02:16] <philipballew> im not sure if it can boot from the network.
[02:16] <akk> What kind of laptop is it? Does it have PCMCIA? Is there any chance of borrowing a PCMCIA CDROM drive?
[02:16] <akk> (That's how I ended up installing on my old Vaio SR17)
[02:17] <rww> I defer to akk's superior old-stuff experience ;)
[02:17] <akk> There are ways to install Linux starting from Windows, but I don't how well tested they are with modern distros (they apparently worked around 8 years ago :)
[02:17] <philipballew> http://jrv.oddones.org/solo.html i found this. its what i have, but i only have the actual notebook itself
[02:17] <philipballew> it has ms 2000
[02:18] <rww> If it has Windows, you could go with Wubi and all its quirkiness.
[02:18] <akk> I have some really old links here (hope some of them are still there): http://shallowsky.com/linux/vaiolinux.html#withoutCD
[02:19] <akk> It did sound complicated -- I was much relieved (though ever so slightly disappointed too) when d got a pcmcia CDROM drive which made the process trivial.
[02:19] <philipballew> wubi i hear is buggy
[02:20] <akk> That machine sounds very similar in specs to my old Vaio.
[02:20] <philipballew> i feel it might not be possible, maybe though
[02:22] <philipballew> akk i cant install it to the drive when its booted into windows can i?
[02:23] <akk> Yes, that's what those Toshiba Libretto pages I link to are about, assuming you can still get that loadlin program somewhere.
[02:23] <akk> This one is still there: http://www.omote.com/libretto/
[02:24] <akk> But the link for where to get the files is broken ... maybe search on loadlin.exe, and if you get a lot of cruft from that search, add libretto.
[02:24] <akk> The toshiba libretto community definitely had the most info on no-cd installations.
[02:25] <philipballew> true, this looks like a chalenge
[02:26] <philipballew> might be better to sell the thing as is, but where is the fun in that, haha
[02:27] <akk> wimp! :)
[02:28] <philipballew> haha, could i just plug the laptop to my main laptop with say a crossover cable and do it that way you think maybe?
[02:28] <akk> Aren't there programs to install linux on a DOS/Windows partition, from within windows? Seems like I've read about something like that.
[02:29] <philipballew> yeah. but is running linux on ntfs a good idea?
[02:29] <akk> If you can get any form of linux up at all, then you can write stuff to the MBR and make your life a lot easier (e.g. install PLOP so you can boot from USB).
[02:29] <philipballew> what do you mean?
[02:29] <akk> Well, once you have a cmdline, you can write anything you want to the disk
[02:30] <philipballew> how would i even get a cmd line?
[02:30]  * philipballew feels confused
[02:30] <philipballew> :)
[02:30] <akk> See what I asked above about installing to a win partition ^^
[02:31] <akk> I'm not saying you should run linux permanently from ntfs, I'm saying if you can get any linux at all running, then installing a real one gets way easier.
[02:31] <akk> Right now you're asking us, "I have this windows machine that can't talk to anything, how can I do something hard on windows."
[02:32] <akk> If you get to the point where you're running any kind of linux at all, then you're asking us "how can I do something hard from linux", which is a way easier question for a linux channel to answer. :)
[02:32] <philipballew> so i can install on ntfs, then partition the hard drive well im booted from it.? well i can boot up windows
[02:33] <akk> It might be worth trying a repartition first while you're still in windows, so linux doesn't have to try to repartition ntfs.
[02:33] <philipballew> can i partition the drive when its booted?
[02:33] <philipballew> never seen that
[02:34] <rww> Windows XP Pro and above can do online resizing of NTFS, within limits. Dunno about Win2k
[02:34] <akk> I think PartitionMagic can; don't know if there are free tools included in W2k (I'm not a windows person at all).
[02:34] <akk> Are you sure there isn't already a spare partition? A lot of machines of that era already had them.
[02:34] <akk> (and no, I don't know how to check that from windows, but google probably knows)
[02:34] <philipballew> neither am i. there might be. i can maybe boot into the recovery mode.
[02:35] <philipballew> f8 is safe mode. i know that
[02:35] <akk> If there's a recovery mode, it probably has its own partition. But I think safe mode != recovery mode.
[02:35] <akk> Windows recovery stores a whole separate copy of windows on its own partition (eating up lots of your disk space).
[02:36] <rww> safe mode is a Windows function, recovery mode is a thing your OEM creates
[02:36] <akk> also, look in My Computer and see if there's a D: drive :)
[02:36] <philipballew> could i just partition a ext3 or whatever part on the laptop then manually put the file system there. then update windows boot loader?
[02:36] <philipballew> seemes possible
[02:37] <philipballew> me and windows are not friends
[02:37] <akk> philipballew: If you have commands inside windows that will do those things.
[02:37] <rww> Windows' bootloader can't read ext3, iirc
[02:37] <philipballew> ah, thats right. lame windows
[02:37] <akk> Yeah, you'd want to install grub (or another linux bootloader)
[02:37] <rww> though there might be some extra software that does. iono.
[02:38]  * akk wonders if cygwin comes with a dd that can write directly to the disk, copying ext3 and boot partitions
[02:40] <philipballew> well im booted into it now. im gonna download partition magic and see if i can make a ntfs filesystem partition first
[02:41] <philipballew> theres no way to reverse a usb cable to be able to see the internal hd on my desktop or somethin is there?
[02:41]  * philipballew recals seeing that
[02:41]  * philipballew *recalls
[02:42] <akk> no, you'd have to run software on the windows PC to read the disk and act like an external disk
[02:42] <akk> in addition to a different cable
[02:42] <akk> macs can do that for firewire, but I haven't seen that with usb (sounds useful, though)
[02:42] <philipballew> and that wont work if im installing and whipping windows
[02:43] <philipballew> haha
[02:43] <philipballew> it would
[02:43] <akk> right, you'd be booted off the disk you were trying to write to
[02:43] <philipballew> be useful
[02:43] <akk> Macs can do it because they have code for it in firmware, afaik.
[02:43] <akk> You're sure you can't get those stripped disk screws out? :)
[02:44] <philipballew> nope. even home depot laughed and told me not to waste my time
[02:44] <akk> Or ... leave the disk in place, but unplug the cable and somehow find space to plug in a long cable that goes to a USB adaptor.
[02:44] <philipballew> what do you mean?
[02:45] <akk> Well, what would you do if the disk was out of the machine? You'd plug a cable into it, maybe make it work as an external usb disk, so you could plug it into a linux box. Right?
[02:45] <akk> So maybe you can do that while it's still screwed into the machine.
[02:45] <akk> It still has a connector, and that isn't screwed in.
[02:45] <akk> (But there might not be much space to get a different connector in there.)
[02:45] <philipballew> i am not sure there is. :(
[02:46] <akk> What, they soldered lots of individual wires to the disk? I doubt it. Laptop drives are pretty standard.
[02:46] <philipballew> the chip on the hard drive is not remoable due to the screw problem
[02:47] <akk> chip?
[02:48] <philipballew> computer chip that is screwed onto the hard drive
[02:50] <akk> laptop hard drive cable/connector: http://www.insidemylaptop.com/images/Sony-Vaio-PCG-V505DXP/upgrade-laptop-hard-drive-05.jpg
[02:50] <akk> I have no idea what kind of chip you'd be trying to remove from a drive -- that sounds like delicate surgery.
[02:51] <philipballew> thats my laptop hard drive
[02:51] <philipballew> that same one
[02:52]  * philipballew should buy that
[02:56] <philipballew> do you have a link where to look at that by any chance akk?
[02:56] <philipballew> akgraner,
[02:56] <philipballew> oh not you
[02:56] <philipballew> akk
[02:56] <akk> where to look at what?
[02:57] <philipballew> the picture, that looks like it would in theroy work pretty easy
[02:57] <akk> the pic came from http://www.insidemylaptop.com/upgrade-hard-drive-sony-vaio-pcg-v505dxp/
[02:57] <akk> I did a google image search for laptop hard drive cable
[02:57] <akk> but all I'm suggesting is, unplug the cable
[02:58] <akk> then buy an IDE-USB adaptor and plug it into the disk (if there's room)
[02:58] <akk> then you can run a USB cable to some linux machine and write to the disk directly, no interference from the windows laptop
[02:59] <akk> the "if there's room" is the only tricky part there
[03:00] <philipballew> i could probably just run to frys and try it myself sometime
[03:00] <akk> IDE/USB enclosures for laptop disks cost about $12; a cable (with no enclosure, and you don't need the enclosure) is probably a little cheaper.
[03:01] <akk> In fact, you definitely don't want an enclosure because the connector for that almost certainly won't fit in the space you have.
[03:02] <philipballew> E/USB enclosures for laptop disks cost about $12; a cable (with no enclosure, and you don't need the enclosure) is probably a little cheaper.
[03:02] <philipballew> oh, stupid xchat, haha
[03:02] <akk> (It is also possible to go after those screws, regardless of what they told you at Home Depot. It's a thing called an easy-out, but it's tricky to use and you have to have a power drill too.)
[03:02] <philipballew> http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-IDE-SATA-5-25-S-ATA-2-5-3-5-Adapter-Cable-fa-/160624935484?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2565fe023c
[03:02] <philipballew> this might work
[03:03] <akk> That's pretty bulky. Do you have that much room next to the hard drive cable?
[03:04] <philipballew> probably. i might just have one in my boxes of spare comp parts
[03:04]  * philipballew needs to organize that
[03:05] <akk> Something like this is what I was thinking: http://www.laptopharddriveide.com/laptop-hard-drive-ide-3.jpg
[03:05] <akk> which still requires space inside the laptop case (wouldn't work in my teeny vaio)
[03:05] <philipballew> i think i have that somewhere
[03:06] <philipballew> positive
[03:07] <philipballew> ill look around and let you know how it goes
[03:12] <philipballew> haha, you might be annoyed or happy akk, but I have one and it fits. :)
[03:12] <akk> Yay!
[03:12] <akk> That makes things much easier!
[03:13] <akk> Now installing becomes trivial, and the only hard part is getting grub installed properly onto the disk's MBR.
[03:14] <philipballew> well cant i just wipe ms completely and the linux install will install grub. i might install puppy because the laptop only has 256 ram
[03:15] <philipballew> or lubuntu. still thinking about that
[03:17] <akk> Yeah, as long as you can point the linux installer at the usb disk (make sure it's not pointing at your real disk! :) it'll handle grub for you.
[03:17] <akk> Full ubuntu *can* run on that much RAM -- my old Vaio only has 192Mb -- but the desktop will be super slow
[03:18] <akk> and things that want 3d, like unity, might not run at all on graphics that old (they lock up my vaio).
[03:18] <philipballew> ill probably just unplug the real hd on my desktop tp make things simple
[03:18] <akk> openbox is fine, so lubuntu is probably fine; puppy will be a bit faster but a lot more limited.
[03:19] <philipballew> how so limited?
[03:19] <akk> arch or debian squeeze are faster than ubuntu on slow hardware these days.
[03:19] <philipballew> arch is nice
[03:20] <philipballew> i have a cli only debian 6 install. could not be happier
[03:20] <akk> well, I never had much luck getting puppy to do anything esoteric, but maybe markdude can help with that.
[03:20] <philipballew> all i wanna do is have it do some sshing to my other laptops and play music, simple for me i think
[03:20] <philipballew> haha
[03:20] <akk> (BIAB, have to help d with something)
[03:29] <akk> back
[03:30] <philipballew> nice!
[03:30] <philipballew> i think debian with lxde or openbox might be best for this thing
[03:37] <akk> I've been very happy with openbox on old machines like that, even with low memory.
[03:38] <akk> Only problem is if you need to use two big bloated programs at the same time, like firefox and openoffice.
[03:38] <akk> If you only use one at a time (and don't use too many tabs in firefox) it works okay.
[03:38] <philipballew> well i only plan to use the cli on it
[03:39] <akk> oh, yeah, for cli it'll be great
[03:39] <philipballew> but i want to have several cli sessions at the same time
[03:39] <akk> cli on top of X, you mean? since you mentioned lxde/openbox
[03:39] <akk> yeah, should be fine
[03:40] <philipballew> does debian or ubuntu have a openbox distro, i can always installa cli version and install from there. just as easy
[03:40] <rww> you don't need a separate distro, imho. just install openbox on Debian or Ubuntu.
[03:41] <akk> Not that I know of, but if you want a lightweight system, install the server/cli version, then add x and openbox and whatever apps you need.
[03:41] <philipballew> haha. openbox is a desktop inveirment or is it not?
[03:41] <akk> It takes a little longer but you'll end up with a lot less cruft and a lot more disk space.
[03:41] <akk> openbox is a window manager
[03:41] <philipballew> ive herd its not and its just a windiw manager
[03:41] <philipballew> oh..
[03:41] <akk> It's the window manager lxde uses ... lxde is a desktop built on top of openbox.
[03:41] <philipballew> yeah, so its gonna be a window manager for my cli?
[03:42] <akk> it's a window manager for whatever
[03:42] <philipballew> oh. seemes easy
[18:44] <seidos> Super $common-irish-name Brothers
[18:44] <seidos> hello everyone
[18:45] <seidos> mayber Sisters would be better