3 ms·

Did I misremember downloading Slackware to 12 floppies in 1997?

stackghost 9mo ago
Probably not. Pretty sure it was Puppy Linux (among I'm sure others) that could be run on just two floppies. I used to have this old 933MHz Coppermine system that I took when a medical office was going to throw it out, some time in the early 00s. The HDD was borked but it had a 3.5" bay that worked, so I got a floppy-based distro running on it. I later replaced the drive and then made the mistake of attempting to compile X11 on it. Results were... mixed.
gattilorenz 9mo ago
MuLinux was also a floppy-based “live” distro, with optional floppy disks for X11, programming languages, etc.
- UncleSlacky 9mo ago
  There was also "Tom's Root Boot" distro that fitted on a floppy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt
  - mkesper 9mo ago
    That had to use non-standard image size though. Mind blowing this fits now into regular 1.44MB.
flomo 9mo ago
Before then, a local clone store had an 'insane deal' on floppy disks, and they came with Slackware. I had a Mac, and the floppies weren't very good so.
cricalix 9mo ago
12‽ I'd swear the Slackware I downloaded was closer to 30+. On dialup. Via a VAX. Using FTP to go from internet to the VAX box, then Kermit from the VAX to the DOS PC using Procomm Plus. Write it all, start the install sequence, find out that the 18th disk was bad. Reboot. Rinse. Repeat. X disks were X11. There were also the A,B, C etc disks. Then there was the Coherent install, with massive manual on ultra thin paper with the shell on the front.
guenthert 8mo ago
Iirc (it's been a while), Interactive Unix (full?) install required some 40 (forty!) 5 1/4" floppies (I believe 1.2MiB) anno 1992 or so. Linux (SLS) install was (a little later) so much smaller, even with X11 and TeX, as it had shared libraries (somewhat new in the *nix world then). Ah, good times ;-)

Probably not. Pretty sure it was Puppy Linux (among I'm sure others) that could be run on just two floppies. I used to have this old 933MHz Coppermine system that I took when a medical office was going to throw it out, some time in the early 00s. The HDD was borked but it had a 3.5" bay that worked, so I got a floppy-based distro running on it. I later replaced the drive and then made the mistake of attempting to compile X11 on it. Results were... mixed.

gattilorenz 9mo ago

MuLinux was also a floppy-based “live” distro, with optional floppy disks for X11, programming languages, etc.

UncleSlacky 9mo ago
There was also "Tom's Root Boot" distro that fitted on a floppy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt
- mkesper 9mo ago
  That had to use non-standard image size though. Mind blowing this fits now into regular 1.44MB.

flomo 9mo ago

Before then, a local clone store had an 'insane deal' on floppy disks, and they came with Slackware. I had a Mac, and the floppies weren't very good so.

cricalix 9mo ago

12‽ I'd swear the Slackware I downloaded was closer to 30+. On dialup. Via a VAX. Using FTP to go from internet to the VAX box, then Kermit from the VAX to the DOS PC using Procomm Plus. Write it all, start the install sequence, find out that the 18th disk was bad. Reboot. Rinse. Repeat. X disks were X11. There were also the A,B, C etc disks. Then there was the Coherent install, with massive manual on ultra thin paper with the shell on the front.

guenthert 8mo ago

Iirc (it's been a while), Interactive Unix (full?) install required some 40 (forty!) 5 1/4" floppies (I believe 1.2MiB) anno 1992 or so. Linux (SLS) install was (a little later) so much smaller, even with X11 and TeX, as it had shared libraries (somewhat new in the *nix world then). Ah, good times ;-)