What is the smallest Linux OS on which a mobile broadband dongle will work?

nottseagull

kitsonian wrote: »

Have you had a look at Linux Mint?

Well. I have now. Smallest download appears to be 595MB. May I refer you to my post #7, if not my OP.

Baldur

nottseagull wrote: »

The reason was that the original puppy I downloaded was over 100MB, and it's difficult to get an extended session at the library for that. I was hoping that had I been able to reconnect at home with Slitaz, I could then have downloaded the puppy you suggest - or even Ubuntu. However, I noticed that one of the two you suggested in #14 is only 128MB (the other one doesn't give the size, nor is there an estimated time in the download box) Or are these identical? (IDK the difference between http and ft.) If these are just slimmed down versions of what I really need, then I might be able to get a 2 hour session later today as it is so quiet. That session would begin at 1645, and I could probably download up to about 170 MB.

Both the HTTP & FTP links are for the same file 'lupu_devx_511.sfs', which is the full release version of Puppy 5.1.1 - the file size is 128MB.

You'll find the Puppy support forums, if required, here - http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/

nottseagull

Baldur wrote: »

Both the HTTP & FTP links are for the same file 'lupu_devx_511.sfs', which is the full release version of Puppy 5.1.1 - the file size is 128MB.

You'll find the Puppy support forums, if required, here - http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/

OK, I've downloaded it onto a 2GB SD card. Does the whole SD card have to be formatted, or can I partition it? Do I have to burn it onto a CD and transfer it back? I can't extract the files because Windows doesn't know what programme created it. When I followed the links to search online, I thought this was promising, but there is no actual download button on the page, nor on the link for uniblue registry booster.
http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/sfs
I was hoping Linux might be easier than Windows, but it seems that you just encounter problem after problem each step of the way.

spakkker

You have to burn a bootable cd -iso.
5 days on, -don't you know anybody with internet?

kitsonian

nottseagull wrote: »

Well. I have now. Smallest download appears to be 595MB. May I refer you to my post #7, if not my OP.

Sorry nottseagull, if you are looking for a stripped down OS with a really small footprint you'd be hard pushed to find one smaller than -

http://damnsmalllinux.org/

50MB size and bootable from a USB stick.

Hope this helps.

nottseagull

kitsonian wrote: »

Sorry nottseagull, if you are looking for a stripped down OS with a really small footprint you'd be hard pushed to find one smaller than -

http://damnsmalllinux.org/

50MB size and bootable from a USB stick.

Hope this helps.

May I refer you to post #4, if not my OP

nottseagull

spakkker wrote: »

You have to burn a bootable cd -iso.
5 days on, -don't you know anybody with internet?

I only have a couple of blank CD-Rs left (700MB 80 minute 52xMultiSpeed).

I'm afraid I don't know if your post forms an answer to my queries or is an alternative to them. IDK which CDs are bootable and which aren't. I only have a couple of blank CD-Rs left (700MB 80 minute 52xMultiSpeed). They don't tell you that everything you want to put on them has to be burnt at the same time, so I have wasted a couple of them. I don't really know what I'm doing!
What I do know is that I need an OS that runs from a CD without using the hard drive because (1) I have partition problems (2) it is nearly full anyway and (3) I think the PC is too old to boot from a USB (it was made in 2002 and only has USB 1.0 ports).

As to your question, I think I've mentioned in several posts that I have internet access at the library (but only until 18.50).

fwor

I confess I'm not that familiar with Puppy, having used it only a couple of times before, but it looks like they have used a rather unusual (for a normal Windows user) archive format - Squash Filesystem. However, there are free decompression tools for this available for Windows.

Hopefully when you decompress the archive, the result will be a .ISO file, which you can then write to a CD-R (any will do, you don't need a special type to make a bootable CD) using a utility like Imgburn. This will produce a bootable CD from which you should be able to run Puppy.

nottseagull

fwor wrote: »

) using a utility like Imgburn. This will produce a bootable CD from which you should be able to run Puppy.

Will Nero do?

spakkker

Yes fwor beat me to it . I think my 1st link #11 comes down as an iso and just use nero to burn image/project/copy>disc image.
My post #25 is trying to help you - all this time to get a 100-somethingMB d/l is verging on the ridiculous, library clearly isn't up to scratch.
Puppy does need ram to work in -at least 256MB.
Think I mentioned hdd from cex under £10 del. in an earlier thread.