[NeoX51]

I finally got my old laptop (a Toshiba Portege T3400CT - 486 w/ 400MB HD and 4 MB of ram) to run linux!... BUT it has to run from "Loadlin" in a dos partition using Slackware's zipslack files (not ZIP disks, but from mulitple .zip files that are < 1.38mb for floppy transfer). I even had to throw in an 8 MB swapfile to get it to run, but now it does. My goal is to have the laptop boot up & run 100% thru linux. A problem I have is that I cant just boot up with a bootdisk and rootdisk because it wont accept the rootdisk due to the lack of RAM. This is why went for the Loadlin/zipslack method... I figured that I could use 100 MB for the DOS partition and use the rest to atleast make some kind of root system in it.

I've have space to create 3 other partitions (when i get linux running off these, i can convert the DOS partition to linux).60MB for swap space, 100MB for root, and the other 115+MB for home or usr.

I figure that if I used setup, I could just have it reinstall the software on another partition, but it doesnt let me choose like that... all I can do is type in a location... and if it doesnt exist it'll just create a folder in the root folder (which is on the DOS partition).

Cant I use commands (like : mkfs, rdev, mount, etc...) to configure the partitions manually (like being able to choose the partition that should be ROOT)? If this is possible, could someone explain how i'd use them (i've read most of the MAN pages for them, but they are sometimes pretty vague on the usage). I also know that commands like "mkswap" and "swapon/swapoff" can help me with my swap space partition (i think i understand it, but someone else's explaination wouldn't hurt. Are there commands that will allow me to configure which partition is "/home"?

I know this is alot, so thanks in advance to anyone willing and able to help me out.

[NeoX51]

I was also wondering... Is it possible to just copy the directories from the DOS partition onto one of the linux partitions (root) so that it boots from there?