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Install Slackware Using A USB Flash Drive

Dont stop me — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:45:05 GMT

Dont stop me:

[[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, and mount the device to some location:

mkdir flash && mount /dev/sdX1 flash

When installing, choose "Install from a Slackware CD or DVD" then select the "manual" option and after that the "custom" option.
Enter /dev/sdX1 (as shown by "fdisk -l") and installation will proceed.

Other than that, installation process should be no different than when installing from a DVD.

Talk:Install Slackware Using A USB Flash Drive

Dont stop me — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:26:28 GMT

Dont stop me:

Hi,

I'm new to slackware. I tried installing it as given in the wiki page. But ran into trouble in the last stage.
First of all, fdisk -l shows sdb - 16 gb(usb size), sdb1 (4 gb) and sdb1p1 (similar size). What is sdb1p1? Which one do I mount? I decided to mount sdb1.

After mounting and running setup, I set up the targets \home, \usr etc. Then it says it has detected FAT/NTFS filesystem (the usb in all probability) and if I want to add that to fstab. I tried different things here. Since the usb is already mounted, I first tried answering no and going to install. Later I tried mounting sdb1 in flash at this step again and then running install. In both cases, when I select "install from hard disk partition" and select source partition as "/dev/sdb1" and then source path as "/slackware" or "/flash/slackware" or "slackware", it says "error mounting, should I continue". I tried using install option "pre-mounted directory" and gave "/flash/slackware" as the directory but it couldn't find the directory. What am I doing wrong?

Hi,

I had the same issue.

You have to select "Install from a Slackware CD or DVD" then select custom. Enter the device path ex. /dev/sdb1. Installatin should proceed as normal.
The reason for this is that installing from hard disks option does not support iso9660 filesystem.

Hope this helps,

Best wishes,
Zoltan

Install Slackware Using A USB Flash Drive

Dont stop me — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:20:26 GMT

Dont stop me: Updated installation source selection. The old option did not accept the iso9960 partition system.

[[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, and mount the device to some location:

mkdir flash && mount /dev/sdX1 flash

When installing, choose "Install from a Slackware CD or DVD" then select the "custom" option.
Enter /dev/sdX1 (as shown by "fdisk -l") and installation will proceed.

Other than that, installation process should be no different than when installing from a DVD.