3.4.1. From a Boot Floppy plus CD/DVD-ROM - The Traditional Way
With modern laptops, the traditional Linux installation method (from one boot floppy, one support floppy and a package of CD-ROMs or one DVD) should be no problem, if there is a floppy drive and a CD-ROM drive available. Though with certain laptops you might get trouble, if you can not use the floppy drive and the CD/DVD-ROM drive simultaneously, 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+Linux-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 for instance.
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