Peculiar Situation How to install linux ?

[cyberia.in]

I have an old HP Omnibook 900 on which I want to install Linux, since having windows on it is no use to me.

However, the BIOS was protected by someone else, and I cannot change the boot sequence. The current booting order settings are :-

1. Floppy
2. HDD

As you can see, I cannot boot from CD. Also note that I cannot use CD and Floppy simeltaneously.

Hence, I am looking for a guide to booting to the hard disk (DOS or Windows), and then proceeding to install Linux from the CD using some kind of CD drivers. I have also heard that several linux distros have bootable installtion floppies, which i think i can copy to my HDD, and then use to boot fro CD.

Once again, please remember that I CANNOT use CD and Floppy simeltaneously.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Abhinav

[ujjwal]

It is certainly possible, you could use a tool like loadlin for the purpose, or a bootable linux floppy. But the exact method varies depending on the distribution, so which distribution do you want to install?

[cyberia.in]

How about fedora 4 ? or vectorlinux for it's compactness. But i'd like to start out with fedora

[ujjwal]

For fedora core 4 see this -

http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/view...=225409#225409

For vectorlinux read this -

ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distribu...n.html#iso_win

[sba]

imo you should start with Ubunutu. Much better than Fedora (once again...this is just "my opinion")
Here is something that should help you in doing what you want:

Install GNU/Linux without any CD, floppy, USB-key, nor any other removable media

HOWTO: Install Ubuntu Linux without burning a cd

[ujjwal]

old HP Omnibook 900

If its too old ... one wouldn't want to run ubuntu, fedora or an gnome based distribution, or if one did, one would have to switch to XFCE or some other desktop environment. On something < 400MHz and 128MB RAM, Vector would be the best option out of the box.

By the way thanks a lot for the first link sba, thats quite a comprehensive guide.