[Sheflug] laptop problem

["Ian W. Wright" <xxxxx [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I have a laptop with a duff CD Rom drive and a new hard drive (8.4Gb bought
off Ebay for Ł5.35!!) which I want to install win98 on (I know but I have a
couple of win-specific programs I want to use on it while I'm away on
holiday). Having tried various other ways unsucessfully, I am now wondering
if I could use linux to do the necessary. What I am thinking of is to boot
the laptop from one of the small linux-type versions and get it connected to
the network (the laptop has a PCMCIA ethernet card), then mount the CD drive
on one of the other computers and copy the whole contents of the windoze CD
across onto the new hard drive - reboot the laptop from a win 9.x floppy and
do the setup from there.
However, my knowledge of linux falls short on the following points and the
HOWTOs I have read don't seem to have enlightened me:-
1. what would I need to do to get the PCMCIA lan working from the small
linux boot?
2. what command would I need to use to mount the CD on 192.168.0.x machine
onto the laptop at 192.168.1.y and copy all the files across?
3. would it matter whether the machine the CD is on (192.168.0.x) is running
linux or windoze - both are available on the network but would linux
scramble the win-type .cab files in copying across or, if it might, could I
use Samba with a small linux boot on the laptop?
Any help - preferably in 'Janet and John' language would be very gratefully
recieved.
Thanks,

Best wishes,
Ian
--

Ian W. Wright
Sheffield, UK

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