ok, gimme a few to see what i got here, and maybe i can set ya up a quick start crash course (no pun intended) in how to install linux . sound to me like ya might want to try umsdos cause running from a floppy would be quite unfulfilling. i used it once but had the full cd to install so i never did much with it. since ya only have one puter ya problem is that ya cant use a serial connection to become root and do the install that way. if ya could..the text.gz root disk in teh slakware distrib dir is what ya want. but if your goinn to go with the umsdos package ya may be able to do that from a dos window. not sure,we'll see. i installed my linux totally blind...by booting the system to a normal boot and root disk then redirecting the stdout to the comport so i could here most of what went to teh screen. however you wont hear the stderr or your input. and some of the questions you answer can be confusing if the speech isnt correct. to do that ya just boot the boot disk an dhit enter at the first pause when its asking for kernel parameters... ya wont need any for the install first time. then ya put in the root disk when the boot kernel fully decompresses...(you will here the flppy stop moving... that takes a minute or two. after you put in teh root disk theres another pause before it prompts you for a root login. ya just type root and voila ..your in. that is the point where ya would redirect ya output to your com port to the synth. ya would do that with a command like bash </dev/stdin >/dev/cua0 or whatever port your on. or ya can test first by typing echo blah blah > /dev/cua0 to see if the synth talks. normally after that ya would setup the drive for ya linux partition, but that means ya would have to reformat a partition for the linux and ya dont want that. check out the readme for the umsdos stuff and see if you can do it from dos . gotta run. regards, brett barback author of screenvoice for linux.