Boot diskettes for SuSE Linux 7.2

MaxGom · October 20, 2010, 4:40pm

Hello,

I am visiting this forum to search for help. I have an old laptop running SuSE Linux Professional 7.2. I use it occasionally for a very specific scientific software that I want to upgrade (it requires very low computing power). First I would like to re-install the system.

I still have the installation CDs of the distro, but I have not been able to find the boot diskettes. If I remember correctly, there were a “boot disk” and a “modules disk”.

Do you now where I could find images of these old boot disks?

Yours,
Maxime

ken_yap · October 20, 2010, 4:59pm

IIRC there might be floppy images on the CD, it would make sense, given that CDs had so much space (for those days).

please_try_again · October 20, 2010, 6:30pm

On 7.2 Professional (7 CDs + 1 DVD), floppy images are in the directory /disks of the first CD (maybe on other CDs as well, didn’t check)

drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    2048 May 21  2001 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root    4096 May 21  2001 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    1185 May 21  2001 LIESMICH
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    1219 May 21  2001 LIESMICH.DOS
-rw-r--r--  1 root root     384 May 21  2001 MD5SUMS
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    1242 May 21  2001 README
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    1278 May 21  2001 README.DOS
-r--r--r--  1 root root     496 May 21  2001 TRANS.TBL
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1474560 May 21  2001 bootdisk
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1474560 May 21  2001 i386
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1474560 May 21  2001 modules
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1474560 May 21  2001 modules2
-rw-r--r--  2 root root 1473956 Jul 22  1999 rescue

MaxGom · October 21, 2010, 9:38am

Re-,

Thank you for these replies. I have found the images on the CD, and I have written floppies from them (on my newer computer with openSuSE 11.3), using the command dd if=…

I have been able to reinstall the system using them.

Yours,
Maxime

robin_listas · October 21, 2010, 1:16pm

On 2010-10-21 10:06, MaxGom wrote:

> I have been able to reinstall the system using them.

7.2 was a good version, but 7.3 was better. This page maybe of interest to you:

<http://old-en.opensuse.org/Mirrors_discontinued_releases>

There is a link for mirrors that still keep 7.3 - but 7.2 is not listed.

Like <http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/discontinued/i386/> or
<ftp://ftp.hosteurope.de/mirror/ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/discontinued/i386/>

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

ken_yap · October 21, 2010, 1:48pm

Maxime, you’re welcome.

Floppies, wow, nostalgia. I have a small pile of floppies I’m inclined to throw out but I still have one or two machines in the junk pile around that don’t boot from CDROM, so since the floppies are not taking up much space, I’ll wait for those machines to get thrown out first, as they probably will anyway.

Today just saw a trader selling the lowest SATA HD, 500GB, for $39. Higher capacities are even cheaper per GB, sweet spot now is around 1.5TB. I can remember a time I was so pleased when I could afford a 500MB disk, eons ago in Internet time.

Sorry, all this is making me maudlin.

knurpht · October 21, 2010, 2:19pm

A warm welcome here. Is this support or isn’t it. Great fun to see this, 7.2 has been out of support for ages, then this happens. Very nice.

martin_helm · October 21, 2010, 3:46pm

MaxGom wrote:

>
> Re-,
>
> Thank you for these replies. I have found the images on the CD, and I
> have written floppies from them (on my newer computer with openSuSE
> 11.3), using the command dd if=…
>
> I have been able to reinstall the system using them.
>
> Yours,
> Maxime
>
Just for fun: Would you consider to post a bit about the system (hardware)
which runs your 7.2 now?
I just would be interested to know (nostalgia).

lwfinger · October 21, 2010, 5:32pm

On 10/21/2010 07:06 AM, ken yap wrote:
> Today just saw a trader selling the lowest SATA HD, 500GB, for $39.
> Higher capacities are even cheaper per GB, sweet spot now is around
> 1.5TB. I can remember a time I was so pleased when I could afford a
> 500MB disk, eons ago in Internet time.
>
> Sorry, all this is making me maudlin.

I must be much older than you. I was very happy that my first home PC had a 80
MB hard drive. It also had one of the first 25 Mhz i386 CPUs. I also remember
feeling rather good when disk storage crossed the $1/MB level. No it is 20 times
cheaper even with inflated $$.

ken_yap · October 21, 2010, 5:40pm

No, not really. I haven’t gone all the way back to my punch card days. But I didn’t get into Linux/Unix for personal computing for a while because I had access to Sun workstations at work.

DenverD · October 21, 2010, 7:40pm

we had a card puncher in my office…i punched a few…dang noisy machine.

and, i sat at the terminal and typed in something (do not remember
what) to get my disk pack mounted…and, a person (admin we
called’em) had to walk over to the storage shelf, pick up a thing
bigger than a three layer chocolate (mmmmmmmm) cake, walk it over to
the drive unit, physically install it on the spindle and then hit the
button to spin it up…now, THAT was “mounting a drive”…

and, then i could get to it…(circa 1978, IBM 360(s) in the basement
running at SECRET level) along with a thousand other users, or so, in
the same building…i had to go to a different room…use a different
userID and strong pass to log on to the TOP SECRET system…they were
not connected in any way…

–
DenverD
When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]