1 Reply by a2brute

(10 replies, posted in Help & Support (Stable))

Well, still no solutions, so I thought I'd try this forum again.

Much like sjek I tried installing CrunchBang on an older laptop with no optical drive. I have a Fujistsu Lifebook B-series.  The BIOS will recognize and boot a USB floppy drive, but it will not recognize or boot a USB CD drive or USB flash drive.

I was able to install DSL on it using a boot floppy which then recognizes and boots the USB flash drive which contained the DSL image.

If I could do something similar to that with Crunchbang, that would be great.  I'm getting tired of the limitations of DSL.

I tried making a live USB flash drive with Unetbootin, but I cannot get it to boot in the lifebook without some sort of boot floppy that will load the drivers for a USB flash drive and then boot from it.

If anyone has any suggestions, please post.

Thanks.

Go to forum: Help & Support (Stable)

2 Reply by a2brute

(5 replies, posted in CrunchBang Talk)

I see its been a while since anyone has posted to this topic, but I am still faced with the same problem I mentioned above.  I would love to run CrunchBang on this little B-series lifebook.  I have been unable to find a way to install to it though.  It has USB ports and the bios will support booting a USB floppy drive, but it will not recognize or support booting from a USB CDROM or USB flash drive. 

I was able to install DSL on it using a boot floppy which then recognizes and boots the USB flash drive which contained the DSL image.

If I could do something similar to that with Crunchbang, that would be great.  I'm getting tired of the limitations of DSL.

If anyone has any suggestions, please post.

Thanks.

Go to forum: CrunchBang Talk

3 Reply by a2brute

(5 replies, posted in CrunchBang Talk)

I too have one of the Fujistu Lifebook B-series notebooks and would like to install CrunchBang on it.  The lifebook B-series are just one of many makes and models of older, small, lightweight notebooks that have USB ports but no CD drive. The Lifebook, like many others, can boot from a USB floppy, but the BIOS does not recognise a USB CD-ROM.  I was able to install the DSL OS on it because DSL offeres ready made boot floppy images and flash drive images to install from USB.

Please do not mistake what I am saying with installing *TO* a USB drive.  That is well documented and easily accomplished.  I am trying to install the OS *FROM* a USB drive to the laptop hard drive.

Unlike gray-bandit I do not have another laptop with a CD drive that I can swap the hard drive into.  So I'm looking for a way to install CrunchBang onto the Lifebook using a bootable floppy disk and a USB flash drive.  If anyone has any information on how this can be done, please share it here so we can bring CrunchBang to this under served market of older lightweight laptops.

Go to forum: CrunchBang Talk

4 Reply by a2brute

(10 replies, posted in Help & Support (Stable))

I see this topic is a few months old with no activity. I thought I'd try to stir up a response here because this is actually a common problem with a lot of lightweight distributions.  I have seen the question in countless forums regarding a way to install the OS from a USB device, and in most of the forums it seems to go unanswered and the frustrated would be user just sticks with the preinstalled windows OS or switches to a different distribution that provides ready made images to install from flash drives and floppies. (such as DSL)

There are many brands and models of older laptops out there with no CD drives and only USB ports.  The BIOS in many of these older computers will not recognize or boot a USB CD drive.  Most of these older models will boot a USB floppy, but not all.  There is generally a way to boot a floppy and have it then boot a USB flash drive or hard drive. This is the method the wildly popular DSL distribution offers to install the OS on old laptops with no optical drive.  However most distributions, including this one, offer no similar options or images for floppy boot loaders and the ability to install *FROM* a USB drive.

Now, do not mistake what we are asking as how to install *TO* a USB drive from the CD,  That is well documented.  What we need is a way to install the OS to the laptop's hard drive *FROM* a USB drive of some kind, either with a bootable USB flash drive image or with the help of a boot floppy to load from the USB device.

If anyone has information as to how this can be accomplished with CunchBang please share it so we can bring CrunchBang to this under served market.  In the mean time my friends and I that have old lightweight notebooks with no CD drives (Fujistu, Toshiba, and IBM, to name a few) will just continue running DSL until another option comes along.

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