BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk

Requirements Contents Downloads Installation Special-Thanks FAQ Links

Version: 2.0 - Released: 2011/01/01 - Take a look at the Changelog

For other releases please take a look at our Release Page.

This is a Linux bootdisk that doesn't use a ramdisk, so it will run on computers with very little ram.
It is basically a somewhat extended fork of Tiny Linux Bootdisk.

BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk can be used to install either an old Windows version or a linux-2.4
Debian GNU/Linux version (eg Woody or Lenny) on an old 4MB-RAM computer which does not have
or has an unsupported cdrom-drive using parallel-link network with a parallel Laplink-cable.

Requirements

You need at least a 386 machine (fpu not neccessary) with 4 mb ram to run BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk.
The system runs from floppy, so it cannot be removed after booting!

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The system is a BusyBox and uClibc based rescue system with kernel 2.4.
The system uses tmpfs for /tmp.
The user can choose between 32 different keyboard layouts, including swiss keyboard layouts.

Supported Hardware:

Block Devices:
- IDE/ATAPI Disk/CD-Rom Support
- Normal Floppy Disk Support
- Loopback device
Console:
- VGA Text console
BUS / Ports:
- Keyboard generic support (USB should work on most systems)
- PCI / ISA Bus
- Parallel Port
Network Devices:
- PLIP - Parallel Link cable
Plug and Play Support / ISAPNP Support

Included Software:

LINUX-Kernel 2.4.37.11
- with BG-Rescue Linux patch
uClibc 0.9.27 (statically linked into programs)

BusyBox 1.3.2

[, [[, ash, busybox, cat, chattr, chgrp, chmod, chown, cp, cut, date, dd, df, dmesg, 
du, e2fsck, e2label, echo, egrep, env, false, fdisk, fgrep, find, findfs, fsck, fsck.ext2, 
fsck.ext3, grep, gunzip, gzip, head, ifconfig, kill, ln, loadkmap, losetup, ls, lsattr, 
md5sum, mkdir, mke2fs, mkfs.ext2, mkfs.ext3, mknod, mkswap, more, mount, mv, nc, ps, pwd, 
reset, rm, rmdir, sed, sh, sleep, sort, swapoff, swapon, sync, tail, tar, test, touch, 
true, tty, tune2fs, umount, uniq, unzip, vi, wc, yes, zcat

dosfstools 3.0.11
gpart 0.1h (with recent Debian patches)
lilo 22.8
ms-sys 2.2.0
oneit_lite 1.0
e2fsprogs, fdisk, gzip, tar and unzip are integrated in BusyBox

Supported Filesystems: cramfs, ext2, ext3, iso9660, proc, ramfs, tmpfs, vfat

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Downloads

File		Description
bg-tlb-2.0.img	.gz	BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk 1.4 MB floppy image
bg-tlb-2.0-src.tgz		BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk Config/Patch/Source Archive

fdimage.exe	.gz	TOOL for writing image files to floppy discs - runs under Dos/Windows 9x/ME/NT/2k/XP
rawrite2.exe	.gz	OLD TOOL for writing image files to floppy discs - runs under Dos
rawwrtxp.exe	.gz	GRAPHICAL TOOL for writing image files to floppy discs - runs under Windows 9x/ME/NT/2k/XP
gunzip.exe		TOOL for extracting ".gz" archives - runs under Dos/Windows
sha1sums.txt		SHA-1-SUMs for download...

The .gz files are needed only if You have trouble downloading .img files (user request).

Download problems: "RIGHTCLICK" and "Save link as..."

For direct linking (of the current version) please use: http://www.giannone.eu/bgtlb/current/bg-tlb.img

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Installation

Please replace X.Y with the current version number (eg: 2.0)...

For writing the floppy image type in the following at the command line:

on Unix/Linux systems: dd if=bg-tlb-X.Y.img of=/dev/fd0
on DOS/Windows systems: fdimage bg-tlb-X.Y.img a:

Bootable CD-Image

You could technically use BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk as ElTorito image for creating a
bootable CD-ROM. This should work because the root filesystem is generally mounted
read/only. But there is no reason to do this. If Your computer is capable to boot off
a CD-ROM it surely has 16 MB or more of RAM and you could use BG-Rescue Linux.

HOWTO install Windows9x on a computer using parallel-link

To perform a Windows9x installation the neccessary steps are (more or less):

fdisk: partition the disk and toggle the boot flag to on
mkdosfs/mkfs.fat32: format the partition
ms-sys: make the partition bootable
activate plip (see /sbin/network)
copy the installation files (see /sbin/network)
copy io.sys, command.com, himem.sys from a running computer or bootdisk
echo "device=himem.sys" > config.sys
reboot and remove the floppy
run setup.exe

HOWTO install Debian GNU/Linux on a computer using parallel-link

To perform a manual Debian GNU/Linux installation you first have to extract the initrd
into a spare partition so that you are able to boot the installation system without a
ramdisk. With this way which is describeb in many HOWTOS in the internet it should be
possible to run almost any Debian GNU/Linux version which runs Linux kernel 2.2 or 2.4
on a computer with as little as 4MB of RAM.

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Special-Thanks to...

Linus Torwalds for inventing LINUX and distributing it under the terms of the GPL
Christian Perle for Hal91 and for helping me with my first steps in rescue systems
Tom Oehser for tomsrtbt and for writing the bzip2 kernel patch
Christian Ludwig for updating and publishing the bzip2 kernel patch
Erik Andersen and his team for BusyBox and uClibc
Simon Arlott for Tiny Linux Bootdisk
Rob Landley for Toybox

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Frequently asked Questions

Where can I find the kernel configuration file (.config)?
The kernel configuration file can be found in the Config/Patch/Source archive
(bg-tlb-*-src.tgz) along all other BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk related files.