hello,

From one Newb to another, I've only been at it for 30 days, built Gentoo from a network install to a working system. I have an old machine here, I put a floppy in my linux box and made a floppy fdformat and I'll be making a floppy image to install crunchbang on an old box . I'll let you know tomorrow how it works out.

If the system does not want to boot from CD you could try using DSL and boot it from a floppy instead.

Here is a link to help guide you through it http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Boot_Floppies

hello,

Newbie here,

Allow me to help you in more ways than one. Linux is a wonderful "world", Lesson 1. Use Google whenever you don't know something. Here, Is what I got , I knew what you might need because I'm a newbie too.
linux bootfloppy.img for dam small linux
http://gulus.usherbrooke.ca/pub/distro/DamnSmallLinux/current/
here is a site for other floppy linux distros
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Floppy/

Then get the windows program google for source rawwritewin.exe
and make the boot floppy for linux, you can then mount the cd from the floppy and install any cd distro from there. I would recommend Crunchbang lite.

As a side project, I've downloaded a few floppy distros and am going to install linux on an old machine. boot from floppy then install from cd. I've got three old pentium class machines given to me.

If you need more help just email me at tw3akUrb0x@yahoo.com

hello again,

I just realized something, even if you do successfully make a Linux boot floppy. Your next problem will be can your cd read the burned cd? some older drives will not read burned cds?
Debian has a network install as I'm sure there are others once you get it booted , on the floppy distros that I mentions several support network connections