[syslinux] Bootable Floppy w/ Networking & Shell?

[Nazo]

On 1/18/06, Jason Gerfen <jason.gerfen at scl.utah.edu> wrote:
> I realize this is probably the wrong list but since some of the
> principals this list deals with are similar in nature I figured it
> could't hurt.
>
> What I am looking to do:
> Provide a solution to either boot from a floppy disk, establish a
> network connection, give user the ability to run utilities such as fdisk
> and dd. as well as provide the same solution as a PXE bootable image.
>
> My question:
> Does anyone on this list have a solution in place such as this, or
> perhaps a method (the simpiler the better) to create a bootable floppy
> with these three requirements?  I have been looking around and so far I
> have found solutions which require me to build a stipped down kernel
> with specific network card support, creating the filesystem and
> installing the kernel and any utils I need.  Is there any solution
> anyone knows of which is less cubersome?
>
> TIA
>
> --
> Jason Gerfen
>
> "The charge that he had insulted Turkey's armed forces was dropped, but he still faces  the charge that he insulted "Turkishness", lawyers said."
>  ~ BBC News Article
>
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>

Unless I misunderstand, it sounds to me as if what you're looking for
is a live distro -- what usually is called a "rescue disc."  I know of
several, but, probably the one I use the most currently would be
Finnix.  Mind you, Finnix runs off of a CD-ROM and it something like
90MB or so large (maybe slightly more.)  So not what you're looking
for I guess.  If you want a floppy with as much as possible, I think
TOMSRTBT is about the closest you're going to get to something
designed to fit on a floppy, albiet with the help of a utility to
format it to 1.72MB or so (can't recall the exact number, but,
supposedly it works on very nearly all 1.44 floppy disks and drives.) 
I don't know if you can use a tool like memdisk via PXE?  Sorry, I
don't do networked boots.  In fact, I've never even tried one.