On Fri, 12 May 2023 13:40:33 +0200
Alessandro Vesely via Dng <dng@???> wrote:

> On Fri 12/May/2023 11:39:26 +0200 altoid via Dng wrote:
> > On 12 May 2023 at 9:59, Alessandro Vesely via Dng wrote:
> >
> >> ... installed LibreOffice 5.4.7.2 and it works pleasantly well.
> >
> > Your OP says you want to use a pen drive.
>
>
> Yup.
>
>
> > Do you have a properly working USB port in that box?
>
>
> Yup.
>
>
> > Can it boot from a USB drive?
>
>
> Nope.
>
>
> > Check the BIOS settings for that.
>
>
> Done, it can only boot from cdrom, floppy or hd. I wouldn't use the cdrom
> because inserting disks in the drive can only be done by physically unmounting
> the drive and removing its lid.
>
>
> > If you can boot from a USB, burn a Devuan Live *.iso to a good
> > quality pen drive and boot Devuan from there.
> >
> >> .. opened the CD drive to place an old Windows XP cdrom inside it.
> >
> > I thought you had problems with the CD-ROM drive.
>
>
> I do.
>
>
> > Does the CD drive work properly or not?
>
>
> It can read the disk, but doesn't open the door.
>
>
> > Can you boot from the CD-ROM?
>
>
> Yup.
>
>
> > Again, check the BIOS settings for that.
> >
> > If you can boot from CD, try burning a Devuan Live *.iso to a CD and
> > boot from there.
>
>
> It's not the easiest thing to do, also because I'm not familiar with CD
> burning. That's why I installed win32-loader, but it's not very well documented:
>
> ale@pcale:~$ dpkg -L win32-loader
> /.
> /usr
> /usr/share
> /usr/share/doc
> /usr/share/doc/win32-loader
> /usr/share/doc/win32-loader/THANKS
> /usr/share/doc/win32-loader/changelog.gzto
> /usr/share/win32
> /usr/share/win32/win32-loader
> /usr/share/win32/win32-loader/g2ldr
> /usr/share/win32/win32-loader/g2ldr.mbr
> /usr/share/win32/win32-loader.exe
>
> ale@pcale:~$ file /usr/share/win32/win32-loader.exe
> /usr/share/win32/win32-loader.exe: PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 (stripped
> to external PDB), for MS Windows, Nullsoft Installer self-extracting archive
>
> Perhaps, it boots from the drive where it was loaded from? Perhaps it will
> ask? One of the changelog comments says:
>

>    * Download signed grub efi file of testing (bullseye) if the one
>      of stable (buster) is faulty determined by its sha256 fingerprint

>
> Hmm... What if I miss the network device driver?
>
>
> Best
> Ale

Hi,

The easiest way is to take out the hd install it into another computer
and install devuan, then put it back into the old pc. Done.
This is the outstanding feature of linux (and therefore devuan)
that windows will never ever have, you can move it to a new
system just by swapping hard drives.

Ciao,
Tito