Vipershark said:
I actually got bgrescue up and running.
The problem is, it wouldn't detect my pcmcia slot (which autodetects when I'm using DSL.) so I don't think it'll work with the two computers with CD drives. That's not really a problem since they have drives though. Luckily, it detects the 3rd laptop without the drive's pcmcia slots just fine.
Then from there, it just gave me a blank terminal screen and wanted me to type commands. Being new to this, I obviously have no idea what to do when presented with a blank linux terminal. How am I supposed to download the setup files for the OS from this point?
Once you're at the command prompt you just need to follow the instructions
here. I'll type up a condensed version that will hopefully be a little clearer.
First thing you need to do is make sure your network is up. Try ping google.com, if you get a response you should be good to go. If not you'll need to configure your network settings similar to this:
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.14 netmask 255.255.255.0
route add default gw 192.168.0.1
You'll have to replace those numbers with ones suitable for your own network of course, a common variation would be be ip 192.168.1.14 and 192.168.1.1 for the gateway if the settings above don't work. Then you'll need to add a nameserver with the command:
echo "nameserver xx.xx.xx.xx" >> /etc/resolv.conf
If you don't know your nameserver you can use Google's 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
From there you're ready to download the actual install script with the command:
wget
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/frugal_lite.sh
It should end up in your current directory. You'll next have to create your partitions for DSL. It looks like the way this particular install works is it copies the live cd for DSL onto one partition and then you boot the livecd you installed with a floppy and install it from one partition to the other. Make sure one partition is at least 64MB and the other partition would be as large as you're going to want your system.
Here is a link to the fdisk guide on that page, it's fairly simple, but make sure you follow the instructions carefully. If you have any specific questions about that please ask. Once your partitions are good to go you'll need to edit the script file you downloaded, I don't know what editor you'll have, but try:
nano frugal_lite.sh
Change the fourth line to:
URL="distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/current"
and the fifth to:
PROTOCOL="http"
Hit ctrl-x and then y to save the file. (If you don't have nano you should have vim or vi installed)
Put a floppy you don't mind erasing in the drive (it will be your boot disk so make sure it works)
Then finally type:
ash frugal_lite.sh
and follow the prompts. Once it is completed reboot and when you get the boot: prompt type:
boot: dsl vga=normal
Once that is up you can run the normal DSL install with:
dsl-hdinstall
That is a slightly condensed version, you might want to read through the first link as it adds some important notes and what you might need to do if for some reason the install isn't working. Particularly I would read the notes toward the bottom of the page. If there is anything in particular you don't understand please let me know and I'll try to walk you through it. The command line isn't too hard to navigate once you get used to it it bit.
