You can use Knoppix, which runs directly from the CD. Or you can use FIPS, (first interactive partition system I think) which allows you to create partitions without losing your data. But it is for DOS only. Or you can use Partition Magic for Windows.

Basically, you do a scandisk to all your disk to detect corrupted sectors, then defragment the disk to move all the data to the front of the hard disk, then use any of those programs, creating a partition using the free space that is left at the end of the disk.

There are some distributions that can be run in a directory under Windows, but if you are going to try that, much, much better to use Knoppix.

Yup

There's a distro of Linux which you can install on a fat32, right on the same partition as Windows...

I just don't know what it's called

700mb, just let it run for a few days, and forward you calls to your cell phone.

redhat will literally allow you to create a 1GB or greater binary file on any FAT32 partition which you can boot into without any partitioning. The only bad part about it is that it makes you have to use a boot disk... which is no fun... and it's slower.

Time ago, say, 7 years ago, I remember buying Slackware 2.0 (I think). It came with something called "slackzip" or something like that. It was a 50mb or so file which you extracted in a Windows DOS, configured autoexec.bat and some other files, and allowed you to "boot" that directory. Performance is horrible, though.

If you want, you can try DSL (DamnSmallLinux). It is a Linux distribution based on Debian that can fit in a 128 USB drive. I suppose you could burn it into a CD and boot from there, though you won't have GCC or several other utilities.

(Edited: The dsl-0.9.2.iso iso image is just 50mb. Note that this is a link to a file in a ftp, which might be removed when replacing it with a newer version. Better to go to the site and check the latest version from there).

Yeah Cody, it is a disclaimer, if somebody finds this thread in a year

I just tried it. It is a stripped down Knoppix distribution of 50mb. It has Firefox 0.9.1, Pathetic Writer (text editor) 3.5.7, Siag (spreadsheet) 3.5.7, XPaint 2.6.2, Sylpheed 0.9.3, AxY FTP 0.5.1, VNC Viewer and XMMS and some other utilities. It does not have compiler, nor man pages (the man command actually opens links to a URL I guess must be the online man).

Uses kernel 2.4.26. The window manager seems to be something like Fluxbox (never used it, but seems agreeable).

I mounted the iso in my VMWare, using one which already had Win95 installed and worked fine. The Win95 continued working after using the ISO, so you should be able to burn the iso in a CD, and use it without fear.

Yes. My Win95 had FAT32 (a single hard disk, C: = 4gb), and using the command line <i>mount mnt/hda1 mounted it. And I was able to write and read from that directory without problems. If you write anything somewhere else (in example, in /home/dsl which is your starting directory) it disappears the next time you boot.

It should be possible to connect to the internet as well with it, it has the options to setup a connection, but since I am connected at this moment, could not try it out.

(Edited: Aha! Found my old ZipSlack. Here is a direct download to the zip (45mb) (same disclaimer as above, this link might become invalid in the future). According to the homepage, you download the zip, uncompress it in the top level directory -so it creates a C:\Linux, D:\Linux or something), edit a bat file, and done. But it seems it only works on Win95 and Win98, because you need to be on pure DOS to launch it. I anyways recommend DSL, it is newer and will not write anything to your hard disk unless you mount it).

Hmm... interesting, I will download it too. But since the demo is 300mb and the full version 2 cd's, maybe aybabtu won't be able to download it.

In DSL:
What if I wrote a file to something like mnt/hda1/mydir ? That won't be erased, will it? And exactly where on the harddrive is it written? Would it create a "folder" in windows (well, that could be seen in windows) called Mydir?
I've never dealt with this sort of thing, so please forgive my stupidity!

I'm going to download DLS probably...once my current file is done!:P

I think I'm going to just go ahead and get the DSL. Although, what the hell do I do with this "ISO" (wtf?) once I download it?

BasicLinux booted off of 2 floppies, that was cool, but I could only save things to a floppy, because it wouldn't mount my harddrive! Sure, I could save all I wanted (up to 4mb anyway) to it's pathetic RAM drive....but I need more! (for what, I'm not sure:()

Its not 1 disk, but its close

Well, I have the same problem, only worse. I want to put Linux onto my XP computer:-/