“Just how much Linux can you fit on a diskette?”
“Every once in a while, you find yourself in a situation where
nothing but Linux will do. Okay, so that’s most days, but
occasionally you wind up sitting in front of a workstation running
that other OS. You’ll want to access resources in ways where only
Linux seems to provide the tools you need. The problem, of course,
is that Linux isn’t running on that workstation. Luckily, you’ve
got Linux in your pocket, on a 3-1/2-inch floppy diskette, no
less.”
“Since we are talking about Linux on a floppy, it is only
fitting that I start with LOAF, which stands for Linux On A
Floppy.”
“LOAF includes a nice set of useful tools. You get things like
ifconfig, traceroute and of course lynx, which lets you happily
surf either the Web or your local network. Incidentally, if you
just type lynx, you get the local LOAF documentation. (Don’t worry;
it’s a quick read.)”
“Another cool little super-tiny Linux is tomsrtbt, which stands
for “Tom’s floppy which has a root filesystem and is also
bootable.” Hey, I couldn’t make this stuff up. What Tom has
achieved here is practically a miracle of miniaturization. He uses
a great little trick to stretch what he can put on a floppy by
using 1.7 MB of diskette space rather than the normal 1.4.”