I have several old laptops that I'd like to get featherweight Linux distros (with GUI) onto. Here's the catch:
- No CD drive
- No ability in the BIOS to boot from USB
- No USB ports at all, actually
- No LAN port
If I pull the hard drive from the laptop, is there a way to install a distro onto the drive so that when put back in the machine it will either boot right into a functional OS, or proceed as if it's a live USB or CD? I have an ATA to USB adapter which might be useful. Tried unetbootin with that combination but that didn't work. In case you're wondering why I would bother, some people are turning old (Pentium 120, 16megs, 1 gig hard drive) laptops into digital picture frames, auxiliary displays, etc. Anyone deal with a similar problem?