Have diligently followed the instructions but they confuse me regarding using "mount" command, which may be my problem. First I created just swap and root. get a panic halt (-6) when is run following an apparent good install.
Second time I created an EF00 partition before the swap and root's Linux filesystem partitions. Same result.
Is the problem with my not using the mount with swap and root. If so I need an example of how to use it with pkgtool. BTW I have installed to HD and multibooted slack before but the instructions re: pkgtool and mount have me confused badly as I usually do stuff like that after the install.
Hope next attempt doesn't repeat blowing up M$ again.
Thanks in advance

Not knowing to what instructions you refer, and understanding that you probably want something "different", have you tried Alien Bob's Slackware Live?
http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/slackware-live-edition/

A link to the instructions you're attempting to follow would also help.

As far as "blowing up" Microsoft, please do do it again. Repeat as needed.
You have my blessing ;-)

The instructions I refer to are the ones which accompany the download of 14.1. They explain to create a swap and Linux filesystem partition.
Don't want or need other instructions unless they amplify these. Also a listing of partitions created on a flash drive which is being used to boot Slack on different machines from the flash drive would probably help.

I'm sorry for not being too helpful so far, but I can't find any place in 14.1 where installing to a USB stick is described. Installing from, yes.
Maybe you could link to the page you're looking at?
All the stuff on the 14.1 disk is here:
ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/slackware/slackware-14.1/

I ran Slackware 14.1 exclusively from a thumbdrive for about 3 years at work. It made my system administration duties easier without violating the "no installing software" rule.

HOW I DID IT:
I plugged in my thumbdrive into a machine and did a vanilla Slackware install except my target drive was /dev/sdb (the thumb) and NOT the /dev/sda (internal hd). The thumb had a swap partition also. I had ZERO problems.
Then I set my desktop to boot from USB devices first.


If you're getting weird errors, I'd suspect it's the thumbdrive itself. SD cards and thumbdrives are notoriously flaky,

Are you installing under UEFI or under traditional BIOS?

For thumb drives, it might be easier to make a traditional legacy installation and configure the motherboard to boot external media in legacy mode.

did you run after creating the swap and filesystem partitions?

OK guys - BIOS does not use EF00 so yes I am installing on uefi.
Like I said I first created /swap and / (=root) for the first attempt.
Second time I tried I installed /EF00 in first partition and the other two in order after that.
Those are basically the instructions that are given but I tried /EF00 in desperation thinking UEFI needs it.
Couldn't see why pkgtool and mount command were needed and did not use them.
And yes I used gdisk /dev/sdb to create the partitions. After install starts (setup entered) both times it recognized swap and root.
Setup is how one gets into the dialog boxes which Slack uses for installing.
Don't think that thumb drive is the problem as I have checked it by writing text to it.
@arfon: would you use gdisk /dev/sdb and then p to list the partitions on your thumb drive and post them here?

during the selection of partitions, setup at some point should have asked if you wanted to format the ef00 partition as vfat for efi and mounted it to /mnt/boot/efi and said it was updating your fstab. You are using slackware64-14.1 for efi mode?

@colorpurple21859: When EF00 and the other partitions are written by gdisk, its response suggests it has created the EFI partition correctly which says to me it formatted it. I did not directly format any of the partitions prior to setup. Wondering if this is my problem!? Thought the EF00 was FAT32 not vfat which is it?
I did format swap and root after setup as it is in the installation. Does it matter and I do not recall at the moment if the partitioning sequence even allows for formatting after setting up the partition prior to writting the partitions.
I do not get where to mount timewise the partitions, before or after writting/setup??
I tried before with 14.2 and received error.

gdisk doesn't format the partition, you have to do that yourself with the mkfs command before running setup. Then setup should pickup and mount the efi partition after formating and mounting the target partition