3 ms·

I remember around 2002 running my home router without any hdd on fli4l - a single floppy linux router distribution. I slept in the same room as the router was,

I remember around 2002 running my home router without any hdd on fli4l - a single floppy linux router distribution. I slept in the same room as the router was, hence I wanted a solution without a noisy hdd from that era.

elevation 4mo ago
Was the floppy quieter than an HD?
- hackernudes 4mo ago
  Probably only used the floppy to boot into a ramdisk.
  - littlecranky67 4mo ago
    Exactly.
- ErroneousBosh 4mo ago
  When it wasn't in use, yes. Even when it was the noise it made was a lot softer than the dentist's drill of a hard disk spinning up.
ForOldHack 4mo ago
At the same time, I was running a home router without any HDD on LRP, Linux Router Project, which was a distribution from Swansea Linux, and was a floppy image, that decompressed into RAM, and then chrood to the RAM image. Really nifty, except for the 486 machine had a Pentium Overdrive, which was vulnerable to F00F, and we got owned... only to reboot again, and back to our normal image. Since it had no hard disk, and no monitor, it was quiet, and used little power.
s0rce 4mo ago
I used Freesco another single floppy distribution around that time. I tihnk I had in on old pentium 66 MHz
d3Xt3r 4mo ago
There was also tomsrtbt[1], which was a staple in my "rescue" floppy collection. Along with the QNX floppy[2], which came in super handy when using a cyber café or a friend's PC, and you wanted to avoid all the keyloggers and malware. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt [2] http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html
- dredmorbius 4mo ago
  Trinux was another such utility. It spanned multiple floppies, but booted to RAM and could effectively run from one. The additional disks were for additional tools/utilities. Still apparently available on Sourceforge.net, though last updated in 2013: <https://sourceforge.net/projects/trinux/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/trinux/>
- queenkjuul 4mo ago
  Every time i pull out my tomsrtbt floppy i try to pronounce tomsrtbt in my head and it's always different
  - doubled112 4mo ago
    Tom’s sherbert tastes delicious, I’m sure, but it’s a strange name for a Linux distro.
frrlpp 4mo ago
Freesco router floppy disk distro in 386 with 2MB of RAM and no hard disk. You could pull the floppy for a secure read only router.
a96 4mo ago
I remember some people booting firewalls off CD-R's. Burn a new one when it needed an update. Booting with no writable media at all, truly an immutable distro.

elevation 4mo ago

Was the floppy quieter than an HD?

hackernudes 4mo ago
Probably only used the floppy to boot into a ramdisk.
- littlecranky67 4mo ago
  Exactly.
ErroneousBosh 4mo ago
When it wasn't in use, yes. Even when it was the noise it made was a lot softer than the dentist's drill of a hard disk spinning up.

ForOldHack 4mo ago

At the same time, I was running a home router without any HDD on LRP, Linux Router Project, which was a distribution from Swansea Linux, and was a floppy image, that decompressed into RAM, and then chrood to the RAM image. Really nifty, except for the 486 machine had a Pentium Overdrive, which was vulnerable to F00F, and we got owned... only to reboot again, and back to our normal image. Since it had no hard disk, and no monitor, it was quiet, and used little power.

s0rce 4mo ago

I used Freesco another single floppy distribution around that time. I tihnk I had in on old pentium 66 MHz

d3Xt3r 4mo ago

There was also tomsrtbt[1], which was a staple in my "rescue" floppy collection. Along with the QNX floppy[2], which came in super handy when using a cyber café or a friend's PC, and you wanted to avoid all the keyloggers and malware. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt [2] http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html

dredmorbius 4mo ago
Trinux was another such utility. It spanned multiple floppies, but booted to RAM and could effectively run from one. The additional disks were for additional tools/utilities. Still apparently available on Sourceforge.net, though last updated in 2013: <https://sourceforge.net/projects/trinux/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/trinux/>
queenkjuul 4mo ago
Every time i pull out my tomsrtbt floppy i try to pronounce tomsrtbt in my head and it's always different
- doubled112 4mo ago
  Tom’s sherbert tastes delicious, I’m sure, but it’s a strange name for a Linux distro.

frrlpp 4mo ago

Freesco router floppy disk distro in 386 with 2MB of RAM and no hard disk. You could pull the floppy for a secure read only router.

a96 4mo ago

I remember some people booting firewalls off CD-R's. Burn a new one when it needed an update. Booting with no writable media at all, truly an immutable distro.