From the Battery-HOWTO:"Installing and using Linux on a laptop is usually no problem at all, so go ahead and give it a try. Unlike some other operating systems, Linux still supports and runs well on even very old hardware, so you might give your outdated portable a new purpose in life by installing Linux on it."
One of the great benefits of Linux are its numerous and flexible installation features, which I don't want to describe in detail. Instead I try to focus on laptop specific methods, which are necessary only in certain circumstances.
Most current distributions support installation methods which are useful for laptops, including installation from CD-ROM, via PCMCIA and NFS (or maybe SMB). Please see the documents which are provided with these distributions for further details or take a look at the above mentioned manuals and HOWTOs.
With modern laptops, the usual Linux installation (one Boot Floppy, one Support Floppy, one Packages CD-ROM) should be no problem, if there is are floppy drive and a CD-ROM drive available. Though with certain laptops you might get trouble if you can not simultaneously use the floppy drive and CD-ROM drive , or if the floppy drive is only available as a PCMCIA device, as with the Toshiba Libretto 100. Some laptops support also booting and therefore installation completely from a CD drive, as reported for the SONY VAIO in the VAIO-HOWTO. Note: Check the BIOS for the CD boot option and make sure your Linux distribution comes on a bootable CD.
Certain laptops will only boot zImage kernels. bzImage kernels won't work. This is a known problem with the IBM Thinkpad 600 and Toshiba Tecra series, for instance. Some distributions provide certain boot floppies for these machines or for machines with limited memory resources, Debian/GNU Linux http://www.debian.org for instance.
This is a short description of how to install from a CD-ROM under DOS without using boot or supplemental floppy diskettes. This is especially useful for notebooks with swappable floppy and CD-ROM components (if both are mutually exclusive) or if they are only available as PCMCIA devices. I have taken this method from "Installing Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 For Intel x86 - Chapter 5 Methods for Installing Debian" http://www.debian.org :
resc1440.bin drv1440.bin base2_1.tgz root.bin linux install.bat and loadlin.exe.
F8> at exactly the right moment.
install.bat from that directory in DOS.
This should work for other distributions with similar changes. For RedHat see How to Install from CD-ROM without Boot and Supplemental Disks .
Some new laptops may be able to boot a Linux distribution on a bootable CD-ROM (e.g., RedHat). This would allow installation without a floppy disk drive.
Because of their small or non-existent footprint, micro-Linuxes are especially suited to run on laptops -- particularly if you use a company-provided laptop running Windows9x/NT. Or for installation purposes using another non Linux machine. There are several micro Linux distributions out there that boot from one or two floppies and run off a ramdisk. See appendix A for a listing of distributions.
I tried the following with muLinux to clone my HP OmniBook 800 to a COMPAQ Armada 1592DT. Thanks to Michele Andreoli, maintainer of muLinux for his support. Since muLinux doesn't support PCMCIA yet, you may use TomsRtBt instead. In turn TomsRtBt doesn't support PPP but provides slip. I have described how to copy an already existing partition, but it might be also possible to achieve a customized installation. Note: Usually you would try to achieve an installation via NFS, which is supported by many distributions. Or if your sources are not at a Linux machine you might try SMB, which is also supported by muLinux .
You need two machines equipped with Linux. With the laptop (client/destination) on which you want to install Linux use the muLinux floppy. The other machine (server/source) may be a usual Linux box or also using muLinux. Though its low transfer rate I use a serial null modem cable because its cheap. You may apply the according method using a PCMCIA network card and a crossover network cable or a HUB, or a parallel "null modem" cable and PLIP. As the basic protocol I used PPP, but you may also use SLIP. For the data-transfer I used nc, you may use ftp, tftp, rsh, ssh, dd, rcp, kermit, NFS, SMB and others.
Basic requirements are:
At your source machine issue the following commands (attention: IP address, port number, partition and tty are just examples!):
/dev/ttyS0 115200 passive
setup -f ppp .pppd .ifconfig ppp0 192.168.0.1 .route add default gw 192.168.0.1 .ping 192.168.0.2, though the destination machine isn't up yet.<LEFT-ALT><Fx>: cat /dev/hda2 | gzip -c | nc -l -p 5555 .killall ping .
At the destination machine issue:
/dev/ttyS0 115200 passive
setup -f ppp .pppd .ifconfig ppp0 192.168.0.2 .route add default gw 192.168.0.2 .ping 192.168.0.1 .nc 192.168.0.1 5555 | gzip -dc >/dev/hda4 .<CTL><C> .killall ping .
lilo .rdev image root_device .
bzip2 didn't work, probably because I wasn't able to make it read from stdin .rshd, sshd, ftpd daemons are not available with muLinux you have to build your own daemon with nc, as described above.asyncmap 0 or local?dd instead of cat therefore.
From Adam Sulmicki adam@cfar.unc.edu I got this hint: Most but not all harddisks in laptops are removable, but this might be not an easy task. You could just buy one of those cheap 2.5" IDE converters/adapters which allow you to connect this harddisk temporarily to a PC with IDE subsystem, and install Linux as usual using that PC. You may do so using the harddisk as the first IDE drive or besides as the second IDE drive. But than you need to be sure that lilo writes to the right partition. Also you have to make sure that you use the same translation style as your laptop is going to use (i.e. LBA vs. LARGE vs. CHS ). You find additional information in the Hard-Disk-Upgrade-mini-HOWTO. You might copy an existing partition, but it is also possible to achieve a customized installation.
Since I don't have a laptop which comes with a PCMCIA floppy drive (for instance Toshiba Libretto 100), I couldn't check this method. Please see the chapter Booting from a PCMCIA Device in the PCMCIA-HOWTO. Also I couldn't check whether booting from a PCMCIA harddisk is possible.
Anyway, when you are able to boot from a floppy and the laptop provides a PCMCIA slot, it should be possible to use different PCMCIA cards to connect to another machine, to an external SCSI device, different external CD and ZIP drives and others. Usually these methods are described in the documentation which is provided with the distribution.
I couldn't check this method by myself, because I don't have such a device. Please check the according Install-From-Zip-mini-HOWTO and CD-HOWTO. Also I don't know how much these installation methods are supported by the Linux distributions or the micro Linuxes. I suppose you have to fiddle around a bit to get this working.