Looking for a partition-less distribution

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fran
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Fran

Is there a Linux Distribution that can be installed on an existing
partition, without a need for partitioning a hdd? I found Topologi linux,
which can even install on NTFS partition, but it hasn't been updated for a
while. Any other? And no, I'm not looking for a live CD, but something that
installs on HDD.
 
Is there a Linux Distribution that can be installed on an existing
partition, without a need for partitioning a hdd? I found Topologi
linux, which can even install on NTFS partition, but it hasn't been
updated for a while. Any other? And no, I'm not looking for a live CD,
but something that installs on HDD.
Click to expand...

http://www.slackware.com/zipslack/

"ZipSlack

ZipSlack is a special edition of Slackware Linux that can be installed
onto any FAT (or FAT32) filesystem with about 100 MB of free space. It
uses the UMSDOS filesystem and contains most of the programs you will
need. This means that you do not need to repartition your hard disk if you
already have DOS or Windows installed. ZipSlack installs into a directory
on your DOS filesystem. It can also be installed to and booted from a Zip
disk.

This distribution is ideal for people who don't have a lot of hard disk
space, do not have a fast Internet connection to download the entire
distribution, or who want a Linux distribution they can carry around on a
Zip disk."

Regards
Gordon
 
Fran said:
Is there a Linux Distribution that can be installed on an existing
partition, without a need for partitioning a hdd? I found Topologi linux,
which can even install on NTFS partition, but it hasn't been updated for a
while. Any other? And no, I'm not looking for a live CD, but something that
installs on HDD.
Click to expand...

AFAIK, no linux distribution cares about doing the partitioning. Most
do, however, care about what file system you have installed on that
partition. For example, if the partition is already formatted for
ext2, then any linux distribution can be installed without
repartitioning (or formatting). If the partition is already formatted
as NTFS, most linux distributions can be installed on that partition
if you will let the installer reformat the partition (as ext2, or some
other linux filesystem type).

So I think you want to rephrase the question. Perhaps you mean "is
there a linux distribution that can be installed on an existing
partition that is fomatted as <fill-in-here>?". Tell us what you
really want to do.

This group is pretty windows-centric, you may find better information
on linux distributions in, for example, alt.os.linux or its subgroups.

Terry
 
Fran said:
Is there a Linux Distribution that can be installed on an existing
partition, without a need for partitioning a hdd? I found Topologi linux,
which can even install on NTFS partition, but it hasn't been updated for a
while. Any other? And no, I'm not looking for a live CD, but something that
installs on HDD.
Click to expand...

There are several to choose from, Dragon Linux, Winlinux, etc..
They use the umbdos file system, which means that they use the same file
system as windows, mainly fat32.

They are started by a small bat file which closes down your windows and
makes a soft reboot into Linux.
To get back into windows you enter the word reboot at a prompt.

I tried to get winlinux to work for a long time but my video card was
not compatible with it. Winlinux is big to download, and the server is
slow, use a downloader with 10 threads. It needs at least 3GB hard disk
space to unpack.

Dragon linux is a lot easier and smaller to handle.

If I had had a more compatible video card it might have worked better.

You can try these versions of linux and if you do not like them you just
delete their folders and files.

Look for umbdos linux, loadlin.exe, to find out more about such versions
of linux. The advantages are that you can look at the linux file system,
change files from windows, then boot into linux and see the result of
the changes, a good way to get to know more about how linux works
without giving up windows.
 
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