Pavan,
Try Slackware, it is well- organized and you can probably better control
exactly what you want to install. It may be tedious selecting individual
packages, but it will be more *precise*.
Also, I have seen something called drop-in Linux distribution on 6 disks,
but that is mostly for DOS->Linux migration. I have also seen "recovery"
disks that fit linux on a floppy (Tom's dist, see sunsite.unc.edu
/pub/Linux/system/recovery), includes some drivers (net/CDROM/etc).
Minimal, but I'd say start small and add packages as you see fit.
Also another tip: I would assume you will have little RAM to work with.
Recompiling your kernel (I would do this on a desktop ;) would be prudent
to keep memory usage down.
Tell me how it goes, I am about to try this myself :)
Everyone: Is there a FAQ that includes a good vendor list? I want CHEAP
man. Is PC/104+ worth it?? Or should I stay with PC/104? I just want to
build a portable "video recorder" with a couple of PC/104 modules, a
QuickCam, and some kind of media, probably my external (parallel port,
slow!) Zip drive.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Prashant Inamti web: http://www.jovian.net/~prosh
email: 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
On Fri, 10 Apr 1998, R. Paul McCarty wrote:
> My wearable is running off of a Sandisk 40MB Flash Drive. To do the
> install I just plugged a floppy and cdrom into the pc/104 cpu board and
> installed on the flash drive, then pulled the cd and floppy off. It was
> pretty easy to do, but the biggest problem is stuffing a commercial
> linux release into a small space. The RedHat distribution version 5.0
> claims to require only 20MB for a minimal install but the installer wont
> let you reduce the installation size below 43MB. I had to use the
> previous RedHat installation (4.1 I think) to fit it all in. I think the
> installation still used 35MB and I cleaned out some extraneous stuff
> like man pages and got it under 30MB. Alternatively, netBSD has a
> kernel and some basic apps like telnet, ftp, etc that fits on a single
> floppy. You could probably just copy this onto the flash drive and boot
> from it. Also, some of the other Linux distributions I've heard have
> better minimal installations than RedHat. I think SUSE is supposed to
> fit in 20MB without much trouble.
>
> -Paul
>
> pavan wrote:
> >
> > Hi!
> >
> > I was wondering if anyone could help me out here. I'm working on a project
> > in college (WPI), where we have to build a Network based video surveilence
> > system. Unlike some systems which use a camera that has inbuilt networking
> > capabilities, we have to build a general purpose computaion node
> > ( A really small computer that you can plug a cameraor two or as a
> > matter of fact any other device into). Because of the small form factor
> > and a PC compatible architecture we deceided to use a PC104 system. Because of
> > various other advantages we deceided to use run linux on the box. Well as
> > you can see this is very similar to wearables except for two things 1) No
> > HMD and keyboard even though you should be able to plug one in and 2)No
> > Disk (will use a Solid State one instead).
> >
> > So I was wondering if there is anyone out there who got linux to boot on
> > a pc104 through a solid state disk or through netboot (or anyother
> > loader). Or if there are any better solutions I'd love to know about them.
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > pavan , 
> >
> > "To laugh, or not to laugh?"
> > -a paranoid droid in a galaxy far, far away.
>
> --
> R. Paul McCarty / DARS Coordinator / 
/ x52059
> 317 Lattimore Hall, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627
> Computers don't make mistakes;what they do,they do on purpose.-Dale/KOTH
>
>
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