Can I boot Ubuntu from a floppy?

Question

I'm stuck on a really old computer with ~500MB RAM and a 6GB HDD. It has Windows 2000. Being not from this side of the century (it originally ran Windows 98), the BIOS does not have an option to boot from USB. It also does not have a CD burner, and I don't have any money to order a liveCD off the internet.

So I only have a USB port and a floppy drive to work with. When I tried DSL, I had a floppy that contained the kernel and syslinux. I realize that the Ubuntu kernel is too large to fit on one 1.44MB floppy, but is there some sort of program/boot loader that could load from USB from a floppy?

• Yes, I tried Plop. It didn't work because of my old BIOS.

Is there a program that I can use to boot Ubuntu from a floppy and a USB?

also: I only have a power user account. So a lot of things go straight out the window there.

Solution 1

First, as you can imagine, Ubuntu is going to run slowly on that hardware, and I normally think of a 5 Gb partition as the minimal space for an Ubuntu install.

You may have better success with Lubuntu, it will use less resources.

You can probably boot an iso from your hard drive with grub4dos

I can not give you a detailed walk through on this as I do not have windows 98 to confirm this on, but the following should work.

Download ubuntu or lubuntu iso, put it in C:\

Download grub4dos from http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos/

It is a zip file, unzip it.

copy grldr from the extracted archive to C:\grldr

Save a backup copy of c:\boot.ini , open c:\boot.ini with notepad and add the following line to the end of the file

c:\grldr="Boot Ubuntu ISO"

Save the file and close it.

Again using notepad, create a file C:\menu.lst save it as a txet file to C:\menu.lst (that is a small "l" and not the number "1").

title Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop
find --set-root /ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso
map /ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso (hd32)
map --hook
root (hd32)
kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso quiet splash --
initrd /casper/initrd.lz

That menu entry is for the ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso , adjust your menu accordingly.

Reboot and give it a try. If it goes well you should boot the ubuntu iso, it will be slow.

To un-do those changes, delete C:\grldr , undo your edit to c:\boot.ini, delete C:\menu.lst, delete the ubuntu desktop iso.

Solution 2

I think this can be done with Super Grub disk to (possibly) bootstrap the USB to boot. Download the lastest iso^ from the download page.

If you need a program to extract the files from the iso, Peazip (or 7zip) is a free and open source tool you can use. (If you have trouble installing because you are not an administrator, try the portable version of Peazip (or 7zip portable)).

The img file is in the Super Grub disk iso, under [BOOT]/Bootable_NoEmulation.iso

You can install Super Grub disk. onto a floppy drive using RawWrite for Windows. Download the Rawwrite Binary (the .zip file - 0.7 is the lastest at time of writing). You can use Peazip to extract the zip file.

With RawWrite, select the image file as and click write (after inserting a floppy disk) and it should write to the floppy drive.

(I assume you have downloaded a ubuntu iso). Use the lastest unetbootin exe. To make a live usb with unetbootin: (from pendrive linux)

1. Download UNetBootin for Windows
2. Download your favorite Linux ISO

3. Double click the Unetbootin Executable to start the program

   1. Click the Diskimage radio box
   2. Browse to select your ISO
   3. Set your target USB drive
   4. Click OK to start the creation

   

(If you are using the target computer to view this, then write the following instructions down, or print them out)

Reboot and boot from the floppy drive, with USB drive plugged in. Get to the command line (you may or may not have the menu pop up.)

Once there you will need to find your boot device. (Glance at the code below). If you only have 1 hard drive it will be hd1 for the second hard drive - the usb drive (the numbering starts from 0). The second number afterwords is your partiton number. For a USB drive it us usually 1 for the first partition (numbering starts from 1). Enter the code below to boot from your USB drive.

set root=(hd1,1)
chainloader +1
boot

(Line 1: select boot device, Line 2: Say that we will just ask it to boot, Line 3: "Now! Boot now!")

---

^ link latest at time of writing

Comments

[Jorge Castro]

Does the BIOS have an option to network boot?

[WindowsEscapist]

You guys are incredible! Sorry for not being involved, I've been having kernel errors with my old buggy 2000. I never thought I'd see so many comments in so little time! Thank you all! I am indescribably grateful. While I haven't been able to try any of these yet, I plan on printing them all out and doing so ASAP. (Who needs food when you can have Ubuntu?) My internet connection is really, really slow (I got my .iso off of Bittorrent in ~2h) so net booting is not an option) My BIOS has from CD (no burner), floppy, and HDD. I use some proprietary netcard, so it wouldnt be recognized anyways.

[irumata]

-1. 1) He cannot boot of a CD or USB drive from the bios. Only from a floppy disk. 2) Puppy is too large to fit on a floppy. 120MB (Puppy) > 1.44 MB (Floppy disk).

[emtin4]

@Portablejim I was suggesting him the os & yaa! by no way puppy gonna fit into floppy(plus I didn't mean this). There are two softwares that handles the line 4, 1) wakepup2 -> that solves usb boot through floppy 2)Puppy Universal Installer(comes preinstalled)-> once puppy booted through usb, you can install wherever you want.There are lots of features that I can't write here ..thats why i pasted links.

[Knowledge Cube]

@nitinmartolia I think you missed what the question was asking for in your answer. The OP wants a program he can install and boot from a floppy so he can load Ubuntu/Lubuntu/Puppy Linux/whatever through a USB drive. However, your previous comment mentioned WakePup2, which does look like what the OP wants; I'd suggest rewriting your answer to explain how to set that utility up and use it instead of being merely a distro recommendation / feature list.

[irumata]

@nitinmartolia If you edit your answer to refer to wakepup2 as a way of booting a USB drive from a floppy drive and include instructions on how to do it, I will remove my -1. Improving the answer further may get a +1.

[Icedrake]

Detailed answer, but doesn't answer the author's question at all. Basically what WarriorIng64 said.

[emtin4]

"It doesn't answer at all"..ha ha ...this is fun,after reading comments from warrioring64 and portablejim,now there is a comment from icedrake.First of all,author's answer is already being told by others & Second I don't care about author anymore because he doesn't care too..his involvement is zero ..other than the asked question.Plz try to understand one common thing,post is not always about exact answer to the question..I was just recommending him the best distro according to his configuration, thats it..but still war & jim weren't happy about not giving the exact answer,so i edited my post.

[emtin4]

@Portablejim .. Plz show some respect ,this is not kid's place taking .."I will remove my -1 & improving the answer further may get a +1" what do you mean by that? learn from warrioring64 ..how to talk and Plz I am not here for points rather learning, you can put any no. of download vote as you want ..cause thats you right & i respect your thinking,but first you should learn how to talk in askubuntu.

[irumata]

@nitinmartolia Sorry. I will try and have a better attitude.

[WindowsEscapist]

Hey, I care! You guys, having working Linux distros, don't understand the pain of the Windows kernel on a failing HDD. And, I believe (as a noob, i don't really have much right to speak, but still) that DSL, which i was able to boot (albeit glitchy) would be the best distro for me based on specs, being ~50MB and also being able to load into RAM. My Windows already runs mostly off an 8GB flash drive as it is, so space isn't that much of a problem.

[WindowsEscapist]

This is probably pretty obvious and I just don't see it, but where should I place my iso? And also, I seem to ave lost the ability to edit my boot.ini (I know I could earlier, my admin must have done something). Is there any way that I could get around this?

[Panther]

Put the Ubuntu desktop.iso in C:\ , not in a sub directory. Perhaps your admin can help you with the edit ;)

[WindowsEscapist]

thank you! (I might have to go get BartPE or some other password ...ummm... "helper" (that's it, helper!))

[WindowsEscapist]

Oh! I just realized something. I don't have enough HDD space for the .iso in C:\, so could i set it to in a subdirectory in my flash drive? I know that DSL sees my flash drive as sda1, but is that what grldr will see it as? And if its not too much trouble, could I have an example? See, my dream is to have a flash drive not only USB-bootable but by a sort of "rescue floppy" if you will with a LiveCD persistent Ubuntu.

[Panther]

Well, the question is if the BIOS or grub will recognize the flash drive at that time in the boot process. My guess would be not. Can you move user data off the C drive ?

[WindowsEscapist]

yes, but my drive is fast filling up. (~1GB left)