I need help

[SamLeo678]

I want to use linux on an old laptop I got but someone told me that I wouldn't be able to boot a linux OS using the USB port so they said burn the files on a blank disc but the only blank disc's I have are only 700mb. So is there a linux OS that's lower than 700mb?

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, SamLeo678 said:

someone told me that I wouldn't be able to boot a linux OS using the USB port

Who told you? What laptop is this?

 

Anyway you can try Debian https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst

[Wild Penquin]

@SamLeo678:

 

The thing is, most distributions bootmedia grew beyond CD size (~700MB) years ago. Who uses CDR(W) anyways, these days? You need a DVD(+-R(W)) and a suitable writer, to be able to use some optical media, if you are hard-determined to use one.

 

Booting any Linux distribution from USB should be trivial. ~10 years ago (or more) some Laptops were buggy / hard-wired to their rescue media, and they could not boot from USB. Even then there usually is some way around this limitation. And, the said laptops might even have problems booting from optical media, too... (but there are some Windows-laptops which can not even boot Windows from USB stick!). IMHO using Optical Media should be avoided for this kind of usage whenever possible.