Install Slackware Using A USB Flash Drive

Donallen — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:19:10 GMT

Donallen: /* Installation */

[[Category:Tutorials]]

Installing Slackware using a USB flash drive is very easy.

Slackware includes a usbboot.img in the usb-and-pxe-installers directory of the official installation media, which is a minimal image very handy for FTP or other kinds of network installations.

In the same directory one can also find usbimg2disk.sh, a script that will dump the usbboot.img image to a flash drive, useful in case the above image does not work for you out of the box.

Additionally, AlienBOB has written two articles in his blog on how to install Slackware using a USB flash drive from either

[http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/welcome-windows-user/ Microsoft Windows] or [http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/installing-slackware-using-usb-thumb-drive/ Linux].

This document describes yet another way of creating an image capable of booting from USB, containing all of the packages neeeded for an installation, using [http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux#HYBRID_CD-ROM.2FHARD_DISK_MODE Isohybrid].

== Prerequisites ==

A USB flash drive that can fit the ISO image

Syslinux >= 3.72

Additionally you should either have:

a) official Slackware installation media, preferably the DVD ISO one, available on any Slackware mirror

or

b) a local copy of the Slackware tree.

That may be the tree of a stable release, or even the tree of the Slackware current development cycle.

If you choose to use a local copy of the tree you should be able to create your own ISO image using a script such as:

Pat's [http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware/isolinux/README.TXT DVD script], AlienBOB's [http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tools/mirror-slackware-current.sh mirror-slackware-current script] or even a custom one of your own.

== Using isohybrid ==

At this point you should have a Slackware ISO lying on your hard disk

Make it hybrid:

isohybrid slackware-13.1-install-dvd.iso

== Copy the ISO to the USB flash drive ==

All that is left to do now is copy the ISO to the USB flash drive.

This can be done using the [http://linux.die.net/man/1/dd dd] command as the root user.

The following command will overwrite all the files currently present on the USB drive so prior backups are highly advisable:

dd if=slackware-13.1-install-dvd.iso of=/dev/sdX

PS1. dd expects the name of a device, not a partition, so you should use eg. /dev/sdb instead of /dev/sdb1.

PS2. the USB drive should NOT be mounted during dd invocation.

== Installation ==

Boot the machine using the USB drive.

Before running '''setup''', look up (with '''fdisk -l''') which device your USB drive is. When installing, choose "Install from a Slackware CD or DVD". Then select the "manual" option, then the "custom" option.
Enter /dev/sdX1 (as shown by "fdisk -l") and installation will proceed as when installing from a DVD.

== Install with Unetbootin ==

It is possible to install with unetbootin. Download the Slackware iso image of your choice and then install to a USB drive using unetbootin. Tutorials for unetbootin are everywhere. Then, when you get to the SOURCE option in setup use the drive you are installing slackware from (usually it is /dev/sdb1). When it asks where the packages are, enter /slackware for 32 bit or /slackware64 for 64 bit. This was tested using the Slackware 14.0 64-bit x86_64 iso.

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Install Slackware Using A USB Flash Drive