The floppy is not dead,



No  longer spend time burning #linux cd's. Do not need to do that anymore. You can even do the same thing with bsd. By the time you spend downloading the cd image and burn the cd, and then do the install, I can do an ipxeboot from floppy and have the job done. Though to save time sometimes I will do a minimal install and then later add whatever is needed. Done this even with a Pentium 1 to install Slackware 14.1. Pentium 2's or better get Debian. Bought a Sony double speed usb floppy drive from a local office retailer for 5 dollars. Been a good investment.There is a rare instance when I can not install linux on a system, Floppies are not dead.... You can even use the virtual floppy images to load linux into a virtual machine. Search ipxe in this blog for more details..

Floppies can also load terminal programs or modem programs as we used to know them. Terminal programs will easily work on older equipment where the old fashioned rs232 ports (or an adapter for usb with emulation). This is done quite a bit with networking equipment such as routers and switches. It is also used with monitor free computers. for example. We have done this with the Nslu2 and the Pogoplug converted computers. You could also attach this type of terminal to your properly set up linux box, or server, and or desktop management from the command line. There is an article here in the blog on that setup also.
 


Last of all where network communication might be compromised, you can use a floppy disk to upload small but critical files.

All for now. (A floppy can be used like a ninja star....(tic))

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