Baslinux mailing list

[t.maiden AT att.net]

Unfortunately these computers (and XP computers in general I believe) won't 
boot from a floppy even if a floppy drive is built-in.  Booting from the CD 
drive (or maybe from a flash drive) is all you have short of going to (from) 
the hard drive.

-------------- Original message from "Anthony Albert" 
<albert AT umpi.maine.edu>: -------------- 


> On 8 Feb 2006 at 19:52, t.maiden AT att.net wrote: 
> >-------------- Original message from t.maiden AT att.net: -------------- 
> > 
> > 
> >> Someone may have asked this already, but has anyone ever tried to run 
> >> the 
> >> loopback version of BL on a Windows XP PC from either the cmd or the 
> >> command 
> >> window? Where DOS-like commands can be entered? Is it worth trying? Do 
> >> you 
> >> think it would run from a flash drive? Am I goofy to even wonder about 
> >> this? 
> >> Thanks. 
> 
> >Sorry to be replying to my own e-mail, but no, it didn't work. From 
> >either "command" or "cmd" I got the strange message that there was not 
> >enough free memory! I know the available RAM memory on these school 
> >PCs is huge compared to the available memory on my old Compaq Windows 
> >95 box that runs BL3 floppy version like a champ... 
> 
> I think that running BL (or any Linux, for that matter) from the 
> command line in XP is going to be problematic. The issue, I believe is 
> how WinNT/2000/XP handle memory and allocate it to programs - I don't 
> think they'll let BL start up its memory management and load the 
> kernel, with all the low-level access it needs. This is likely the 
> cause of the "not enough free memory" issue. 
> 
> If you were to boot that same computer into DOS, with a floppy disk, 
> and then try BL, or boot from the BL floppies, I'm sure it would work 
> like a champ! I might suggest adding a second, small hard drive that 
> you can install BL on, and to which you can boot from floppy. 
> 
> I do believe that some of the other folks on the list are working on 
> getting BL to run from USB thumb drives - see the last month's 
> archives. 
> 
> Anthony Albert 
> =========================================================== 
> Anthony J. Albert albert AT umpi.maine.edu 
> Systems and Software Support Specialist Postmaster 
> Computer Services - University of Maine, Presque Isle 
> "This is only temporary, unless it works." 
> --- Red Green 
> 
> 
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