Where can i get an free version of unix which is on a diskette

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On 2006-12-26, finish18 <cracker1918@luukku.com> wrote:
> Where can i get an free version of unix which is on a diskette

I just did a Google for "linux floppy distribution" and the very
first entry listed a number of possible candidates.  If you need
this level of support then I would guess a Unix system isn't for
you: it _is_ highly complex and while there's plenty of help
available on the net if you need it, people are less inclined to
assist if you haven't done your own leg work first.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.lonestar.org

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"Andrew Smallshaw" <andrews@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote in message
news:slrnep380d.t7r.andrews@sdf.lonestar.org...
> On 2006-12-26, finish18 <cracker1918@luukku.com> wrote: 
>
> I just did a Google for "linux floppy distribution" and the very
> first entry listed a number of possible candidates.  If you need
> this level of support then I would guess a Unix system isn't for
> you: it _is_ highly complex and while there's plenty of help
> available on the net if you need it, people are less inclined to
> assist if you haven't done your own leg work first.
>
> --
> Andrew Smallshaw
> andrews@sdf.lonestar.org

I get the distinct impression that his floppy may not be for legitimate
purposes 

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On 26 Dec 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.unix.questions, in article
<1167148169.018594.279580@n51g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, finish18 wrote:

>Where can i get an free version of unix which is on a diskette

None of the "registered" UNIX are that small.  Heck, even MS-DOS 5.0
needed two high-density floppies, and windoze 3.1 needed six _more_
to give you a minimum system with no networking and no browser.

You can find single floppy Linux distributions. These are typically
called 'rescue' systems, and have enough things to get your existing
Linux back on it's feet.    Perhaps what may be more useful to you is
'Toms Root n Boot' which is a severely overstuffed floppy system.
I've forgotten how much memory it needs - I've run this on a 80386 with
8 Megs of RAM.  You can get this from any sunsite mirror, such as

ftp.funet.fi/pub/Linux/mirrors/metalab/system/recovery/

ftp.nvg.unit.no/pub/linux/sunsite/system/recovery/

1728550 May  4  2002 tomsrtbt-2.0.103.ElTorito.288.img.bz2
2242580 May  4  2002 tomsrtbt-2.0.103.dos.zip
1119 May  4  2002 tomsrtbt-2.0.103.lsm
1829836 May  4  2002 tomsrtbt-2.0.103.tar.gz

If you are downloading in windoze, you want the 'dos.zip' file, while
the 'tar.gz' is for downloading using a *nix client. Both contain the
floppy image, and the (DOS or Linux) tool needed to transfer the image
to a floppy.  Note that this is command line only - no GUI is possible
in this size limit.

As far as getting a "full" version, I don't think anyone is using that
media any more. A "popular" Linux or one of the *BSDs comes on several
CDs - some need a DVD to hold it all. An example - Fedora Core 6 Linux
is five (plus 2) CDs or one DVD.  That's the equivalent of roughly 2400
1.44 Megabyte floppies.

Old guy

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On 2006-12-28, Moe Trin <ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld> wrote:
> On 26 Dec 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.unix.questions, in article
><1167148169.018594.279580@n51g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, finish18 wrote:
> 
>
> None of the "registered" UNIX are that small.  Heck, even MS-DOS 5.0
> needed two high-density floppies, and windoze 3.1 needed six _more_
> to give you a minimum system with no networking and no browser.

I overlooked the 'a' in the original post and assumed what was
wanted was an OS on a set of floppies.  Whilst I'm not aware of
any full, complete distros distributed on floppy, it is possible
to split up the distribution sets and recombine them on the local
hard disk prior to installation.  How you'd do this depends to some
extent on which OS it is, but most installation programs I've seen
for the free Unices give you a shell prompt somewhere in case you
need it.

But as another poster has said, I find myself hard pressed to find
a situation where this is the best way of doing things for a
legitimate user.  Even if the machine in question doesn't already
have them, I can pick up a network card for GBP 5.00, a CD-ROM
drive for maybe GBP 7.50, or a DVD-ROM drive for around the GBP
12.00 mark.  Any of these options would save that much hassle that
they'd have paid for themselves in a single installation.  And if
you've got an older or highly proprietary machine that doesn't
support any of the above, the chances are it wouldn't support a
modern free Unix anyway.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.lonestar.org

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On 2006-12-26, finish18 <cracker1918@luukku.com> wrote:
> Where can i get an free version of unix which is on a diskette

Search for older slackwares or BSDs.

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On Thu, 28 Dec 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.unix.questions, in article
<slrnep88d7.21c.andrews@sdf.lonestar.org>, Andrew Smallshaw wrote:

>Moe Trin wrote:
 
[vbcol=seagreen] 
[vbcol=seagreen]
>I overlooked the 'a' in the original post and assumed what was
>wanted was an OS on a set of floppies.

It's a bit hard to say - English doesn't appear to be his first language
but I've seen similar requests before, and assumed he had an extremely
limited box and wanted to at least _look_ at a *nix.

>Whilst I'm not aware of any full, complete distros distributed on
>floppy, it is possible to split up the distribution sets and recombine
>them on the local hard disk prior to installation.

I don't know of anyone still using floppies as a distribution or
installation media.  Earlier (and therefore smaller) Linux distros
used to offer that option in the 1990s, but with the growth and/or
bloat of a modern distribution...  as my reply - Fedora Core 6 is five
plus two CDs or one DVD

-rw-r--r--  1 mirror   mirror   3525195776 Oct 18 00:49 FC-6-i386-DVD.iso

but that's about 2400 1.44 floppies worth. You might wear out the floppy
drive before completing an install  ;-)

>But as another poster has said, I find myself hard pressed to find
>a situation where this is the best way of doing things for a
>legitimate user.

I could see it as having something to use at home as part of a college
class. "TomsRootNBoot" is a single severely overstuffed floppy that has
a minimal set of applications like 'vi', 'mail', 'sed', 'grep' 'head',
'tail', 'less', 'more' 'cut'.., about 200 applications including some
very abbreviated man pages. At one time, it was advertised as a learning
system. A neighbor of mine is an instructor at the local community
college, and used it as part of an "Introduction to UNIX" class about
five years ago. Today, he's using a LiveCD and complains that it has to
much stuff on it.

>Even if the machine in question doesn't already have them, I can pick up
>a network card for GBP 5.00, a CD-ROM drive for maybe GBP 7.50, or a
>DVD-ROM drive for around the GBP 12.00 mark.  Any of these options would
>save that much hassle that they'd have paid for themselves in a single
>installation.

I certainly agree with that.  The last system I installed from floppy
was a 1997 version of Slackware Linux, and that was well over a hundred
floppies.  I'd already been using CD installations for three years
before that, and this was an exception I wouldn't want to repeat.

>And if you've got an older or highly proprietary machine that doesn't
>support any of the above, the chances are it wouldn't support a
>modern free Unix anyway.

It was older - didn't have a CD available (386DX, ISA only). Once
installed, there was no problems with the hardware. Today, I'd do a
network install, because it is hundreds of times faster.

Old guy

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On Thu, 28 Dec 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.unix.questions, in article
<slrnep8kd4.1hoa.marcov@snail.stack.nl>, Marco van de Voort wrote:

>finish18 <cracker1918@luukku.com> wrote:
 
>
>Search for older slackwares or BSDs.

ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/historic-linux/distributions/

ftp> dir
200 PORT command successful
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list
drwxr-xr-x   8 (?)      users        4096 May 24  2002 Blade-0.3
drwxr-xr-x   5 (?)      users        4096 Dec 19  2003 MCC
lrwxrwxrwx   1 (?)      users          67 Jan 27  2005 TransAmer ->
./ftp-archives/sunsite.unc.edu/Sep-29-1996/distributions/TransAmer
drwxr-xr-x  12 (?)      users        4096 Nov  2  2000 bogus
drwxr-xr-x   4 (?)      users        4096 May 24  2002 debian
drwxr-xr-x   2 (?)      users        4096 May 24  2002 dilinux
drwxr-xr-x   8 (?)      users        4096 May 24  2002 je
drwxr-xr-x   5 (?)      users        4096 May 24  2002 jurix
drwxr-xr-x   3 (?)      users        4096 Dec 19  2003 mastodon
lrwxrwxrwx   1 (?)      users          68 Jan 27  2005 mini-linux ->
./ftp-archives/sunsite.unc.edu/Sep-29-1996/distributions/mini-linux
drwxr-xr-x   4 (?)      users        4096 Dec 19  2003 monkey
drwxr-xr-x  12 (?)      users        4096 Nov  7  2003 redhat
drwxr-xr-x   7 (?)      users        4096 Dec 19  2003 slackware
drwxr-xr-x   5 (?)      users        4096 Sep  8  2003 sls
drwxr-xr-x   2 (?)      users        4096 May 24  2002 suse
lrwxrwxrwx   1 (?)      users          63 Jan 27  2005 xdenu ->
./ftp-archives/sunsite.unc.edu/Sep-29-1996/distributions/xdenu
drwxr-xr-x   2 (?)      users        4096 Dec 19  2003 yggdrasil
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> dir slackware
200 PORT command successful
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list
drwxr-xr-x  59 (?)      users        4096 Dec 19  2003 1.1.2
drwxr-xr-x  17 (?)      users        4096 May 24  2002 2.1
drwxr-xr-x   6 (?)      users        4096 Oct  3  2003 3.0
drwxr-xr-x  15 (?)      users        4096 May 24  2002 3.1
drwxr-xr-x  13 (?)      users        4096 Dec 19  2003 3.9
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> dir sls
200 PORT command successful
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list
drwxr-xr-x  31 (?)      users        4096 Sep  8  2003 1.03
drwxr-xr-x  34 (?)      users        4096 May 24  2002 1.05
-rw-r--r--   1 (?)      users         379 Sep  8  2003 README-1.03
drwxr-xr-x   3 (?)      users        4096 Sep  8  2003 linux
226 Transfer complete.

Don't let those file dates fool you - Slack 1.1.2 is 15 February 1994
on only 54 floppies. SoftLandingSystems 1.03 is even older.

Old guy

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Begin  <slrnepbhd0.f64.ibuprofin@compton.phx.az.us>
On 2006-12-30, Moe Trin <ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld> wrote:
> I don't know of anyone still using floppies as a distribution or
> installation media.

My weapon-of-choice FreeBSD does allow you to use floppies as transport
for the distribution sets. For example, the base distribution comes as
thirty split(1) chunks of a tarball, each somewhat less than 1440kB.
Add some sysinstall floppies and you can do an old fashioned floppy
installation. I think, but haven't checked lately, that NetBSD and
OpenBSD allow you to do the same thing.

The other sets also come in that form, but, well. Once a base system is
up and running there are presumably quite a few other options available,
all preferrable.


--
j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .
This message was originally posted on Usenet in plain text.
Any other representation, additions, or changes do not have my
consent and may be a violation of international copyright law.

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In article <slrnep8kd4.1hoa.marcov@snail.stack.nl>,
Marco van de Voort  <marcov@stack.nl> wrote:
= On 2006-12-26, finish18 <cracker1918@luukku.com> wrote:
= > Where can i get an free version of unix which is on a diskette
=
= Search for older slackwares or BSDs.

I seem to recall that there is (or once was) a BSD project to do
just that.  I can't recall the specifics any more but seems like it
was called picoBSD or miniBSD or something like that.

As someone else suggested, my initial impression was that the
original poster wanted to try Unix on a box with limited resources
(or simply without going through the entire installation process
before trying it out).  But looking more closely at the (apparent)
e-mail address: cracker1918@luukku.com I begin to wonder.


--
Charlie Sorsby
crs@swcp.com
Edgewood, NM 87015
USA

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