This document describes the process of installing a GNU/Linux distribution onto an IDE Zip disk. If you are looking for information on how to do this with a parallel port zip drive, please check out the Zip-Install mini-howto at LinuxDoc. I chose to use Debian's distribution because that is what I am used to, but the ideas used in this mini-howto can probably be adapted to most other distributions with relative ease.
There are many uses for an installation of Linux on a Zip disk. A strong reason could be to have a rescue disk that you can boot from should anything go wrong with your main system. Another reason could be to have a portable Linux system. Many college computer labs have zip drives on the computers, and this is a nifty way to be able to use Linux on them, and be able to take your system to whichever computer is open. The final reason I will list is that this could be a good teaching tool. For instance, if someone wanted to try out Linux but not take the full plunge into installing it on their computer, this could be a good alternative. That person would just need the help of someone who is comfortable with Linux.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
When I first got the idea to make a Zip disk installation of linux, the only help I found dealt with the parallel port version of the Zip drive, so I decided to take notes through the process of my installation and this document is the result. I certainly can't take credit for all of the ideas used in this document, it is mostly derrived from the ideas in other HOWTOs, and adapted to the IDE version of the Zip drive. The HOWTOs in question are: