I have been using Red Hat Linux at school for the past year or so, and finally decided to install it on my old computer at home (my girlfriend won't let me install it on our laptop) - and, from what I've heard, it doesn't do well on laptops anyway. So I got a three disk set of RedHat 9 from the computer people at my school. Come to find out the computer is incapable of booting right from the CD. No problem I naively think, I will be able to make a boot floppy. When I plug the CD into my laptop, however, the 'images' and 'dosutils' directories are not there. It says they should be there in the Readme file, but they are not. I just figured that the computing people who burned me the disk figured nobody would try to install it on such an ancient computer and decided not to include these files. Then, a few days ago, I was cruising the computer books at my local library and saw Linux for Dummies. It included a version of RedHat 8. Finnally, I thought, I would be able to install it. When I plugged this CD into my laptop - the same directories were missing! The book even has instructions on making a boot floppy - but the files they mention are not there. I tried messing with Windows folder settings. Making it show system and hidden files - but to no avail. Why are these files gone? Can I find replacements? I know that there are scores of places where I can download other distributions, but I don't have real internet access - I am on a library computer at the moment and cannot download anythig. Thanks if anyone can help!

Just how old is this laptop? Bizarre if you can't boot straight off the CD, you need to change it in the BIOS. I've got a 13 year old PC which can't access the BIOS, is your laptop the same?

And are you absolutely sure you're looking in the right place?

Sorry if I sound rude or anything, it's just good to check the obvious things first.

Well I'm trying to install it on a desktop. I have accessed the BIOS but it has no option to change the boot order. I have no idea why the files were not there - I was rather hoping this was some kind of known issue. - I've never been more confused!

Strange. The RedHat 9 images and dosutils are here [ftp.redhat.com] though.
They should have been on the first disk (as I'd have thought the disks are pretty much an image of that ftp directory and a boot block)

Quote: Original post by Simian Man
I have accessed the BIOS but it has no option to change the boot order.

It'll be there somewhere, might even be under IDE configuration or something. You should eventually find a list of all the drives on your system, and be able to put the CD to the top.

Keep looking.

The 2nd or 3rd RedHat 9 CDs is over 640MB, so old CD drives can't read it.

Original post by LucidIon
Strange. The RedHat 9 images and dosutils are here [ftp.redhat.com]

Thank You!