>> But, as Linus says, how many laptops come with only 8MB these days?
>
> It isn't just about laptops - that install CD should install on all
> computers. There are lots of computers around that have 8MB (or less)
> that people want to install Linux on - that's one of the attractions of
> Linux: you can do more stuff with less hardware.
Typical 8 MB computers can not boot _any_ kind of CD-ROM. Since they
will need a boot floppy anyway, the CD-ROM boot can use a 2.88 MB
image and assume that the user has at least 16 MB.
The boot floppy for older machines can drop support for many of the
motherboard and BIOS features that were introduced after CD-ROM boot.
Systems that support CD-ROM boot have features like this:
at least 16 MB of RAM
Pentium or later processor
no XT disks
better than color VGA
no Microchannel
no VLB or EISA (?)
PnP BIOS features
may have I2O
may have CardBus
There might be a few things wrong on that list, but exceptions should
be rare. Don't pull out SIMMs to prove me wrong. :-)
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