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Tiny Linux Installation

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by awebb2

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I read an article in TechRepublic recently (dated May 13, 2002) by Mike Walton.

I am trying to set up the thin client Tiny Linux that he mentioned in the article.

My Machine fits the requirements for installation.
486sx 33 mhz
8 mb ram
270 mb Hard drive

See http://tiny.seul.org/en/index.html for requirements.

I copied the 12 floppy disks and also used rawrite to make a disk with bare.i and another disk with root.gz. The instructions on the above site does not say what to do with these 2 disk.

When I try to start the installation with either the disk with bare.i or root.gz, nothing happens.

When I try to start the installation with disk 1 as a boot disk as the instructions indicate the following message comes up:

NTLDR is missing
Press any key to restart

On pressing a key the same message comes back up.

I have tried the above with the hard drive formated and also without the hard drive formated.

HELP please!!!!

4 replies

by pschuvie

Welcome to the wonderfilled world of Linux and minimal distributions.

I looked over the Tiny site and it does leave a bit to be desired. This is probably not a beginners package for Linux.

boot.I, if created properly is you boot disk and starts the process. It is intended to be used to boot the machine, much like a dos boot disk will do.

So you start the machine from off with the boot.i disk in the a: drive - one note, this action assumes a a: c: boot sequence in bios.
Some promptor message should appear at which point you insert the root.gz disk.

The root.gz disk purpose is to create a file system on the hard drive which would enable the balance of the install package, disks 1-12, to
be inserted at the appropriate times to accomplish the install.

Not having attempted this particular install I can't comment on how well it in fact works, if there are any pitfalls, or if it just works because it is well done.

Might have to take a few minutes and give it a try.
Anyhow that is how it is supposed to work.

Hope that helps a bit.

by awebb2

I figured out the installation and then was faced with another problem.

The rawrite file downloaded from the Tiny linux site is no good. I had to use rawrite from another source which properly created the boot disk for me.

The installation was smooth, HOWEVER on restarting, the system gave the message " Missing operating system". I just laughed, threw up my hands and said ...another day.

Thanks for you help anyway. Would be a good idea for you to try the install and we compare notes. I will give you the points.

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