Install Slackware Using A USB Flash Drive: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 21:47, 27 October 2018

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

Microsoft Windows or 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 Isohybrid.

Prerequisites

A USB flash drive that can fit the ISO image (4GB or larger)

Additionally you should either have:

a) official Slackware installation media, preferably the DVD ISO 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 DVD script, AlienBOB's mirror-slackware-current script or even a custom one of your own.

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 dd command as the root user.

to identify the designation of your usb stick/drive use

fdisk -l

dd will write the iso to whatever drive you tell it to so make double sure you have the right drive designation in the following command

The following command will overwrite all the files currently present on the USB drive with a bootable iso

dd if=/path/to/iso of=/path/to/usb (example 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.

When installing, choose "Install from a slackware USB stick". follow the steps. setup your keyboard add swap space (if used) and select your target drive. when selecting source select

Install from a Slackware USB stick

and follow the prompts

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.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 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, along with AlienBOB's usbimg2disk.sh in case the above image doesnt work for you out of the box.
+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.
-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].
+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.
-This document will demonstrate yet another way of doing this, which from my experience is easier and often more convenient than all of the above. This document will describe how to create a Hybrid Slackware ISO with [http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux#HYBRID_CD-ROM.2FHARD_DISK_MODE Isohybrid].
+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 ==
-Syslinux >=3.72 is required
+A USB flash drive that can fit the ISO image (4GB or larger)
 Additionally you should either have:
-a) official Slackware installation media, preferably the DVD ISO one, available on any Slackware mirror.
+a) official Slackware installation media, preferably the DVD ISO available on any Slackware mirror
+or
-or b) a local copy of the Slackware tree. That may be the tree of a stable release, or even one the tree of the -current Slackware development cycle.
+b) a local copy of the Slackware tree.
-If you choose to go with b) you should be able to create your own ISO images using a script such as:
+That may be the tree of a stable release, or even the tree of the Slackware current development cycle.
-Pat's [http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware/isolinux/README.TXT DVD script]
+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_SPLIT.TXT split to 3 CDs script]
+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.
-AlienBOB's [http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tools/mirror-slackware-current.sh mirror-slackware-current script]
+== Copy the ISO to the USB flash drive ==
-or even a custom one of your own.
+All that is left to do now is copy the ISO to the USB flash drive.
-== Using isohybrid ==
+This can be done using the [http://linux.die.net/man/1/dd dd] command as the root user.
-At this point you should have a Slackware ISO lying on your hard disk.
+to identify the designation of your usb stick/drive use
-Make it hybrid:
+ fdisk -l
-<code> isohybrid slackware-13.1-install-dvd.iso </code>
+dd will write the iso to whatever drive you tell it to so make double sure
+you have the right drive designation in the following command
-== Copy the ISO to the USB flash drive ==
-Now all that is left to do is copy the ISO to the USB flash drive.
-That can be done using the [http://linux.die.net/man/1/dd dd] command as the root user, that will overwrite all the files currently present on the USB drive.
+The following command will overwrite all the files currently present on the USB drive with a bootable iso
+ dd if=/path/to/iso of=/path/to/usb (example 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.
+When installing, choose "Install from a slackware USB stick". follow the steps. setup your keyboard
+add swap space (if used) and select your target drive. when selecting source select
+ Install from a Slackware USB stick
+and follow the prompts
-<code> dd if=slackware-13.1-install-dvd.iso of=/dev/sdX </code>
+== Install with Unetbootin ==
-PS. dd expects the name of the device, not the partition, so you should should eg. /dev/sdb and not /dev/sdb1.
+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.