Install Slackware Using A USB Flash Drive: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:44, 18 November 2010

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 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 will describe yet another way of doing this, using Isohybrid.

Prerequisites

Syslinux >=3.72 is required

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 DVD script, AlienBOB's 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 dd command as the root user, that will overwrite all the files currently present on the USB drive:

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

PS. dd expects the name of the device, not the partition, so you should be using eg. /dev/sdb and not /dev/sdb1.

Epilogue

Boot the machine using the USB drive. Experience should be no different than using the official installation media.

@@ 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, along with AlienBOB's usbimg2disk.sh 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].
+Additionally, AlienBOB has written two articles in his blog on how to install Slackware using a USB flash drive from either
-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].
+[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 will describe yet another way of doing this, using [http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux#HYBRID_CD-ROM.2FHARD_DISK_MODE Isohybrid].
 == Prerequisites ==
@@ Line 15: / Line 17: @@
 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 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 go with b) 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]
+or b) a local copy of the Slackware tree.
-Pat's [http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware/isolinux/README_SPLIT.TXT split to 3 CDs script]
+That may be the tree of a stable release, or even the tree of the Slackware current development cycle.
-AlienBOB's [http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tools/mirror-slackware-current.sh mirror-slackware-current 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:
-or even a custom one of your own.
+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 ==
@@ Line 39: / Line 37: @@
 == Copy the ISO to the USB flash drive ==
-Now all that is left to do is copy the ISO to the USB flash drive.
+All that is left to do now 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:
+This 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:
 <code> dd if=slackware-13.1-install-dvd.iso of=/dev/sdX </code>
-PS. dd expects the name of the device, not the partition, so you should use eg. /dev/sdb and not /dev/sdb1.
+PS. dd expects the name of the device, not the partition, so you should be using eg. /dev/sdb and not /dev/sdb1.
 == Epilogue ==
-Boot the computer using the USB drive. Experience should be no different than using the official installation media.
+Boot the machine using the USB drive. Experience should be no different than using the official installation media.