Impossible to install Slack 12 booting installer from floppy?
 

Hey guys.

I was going to install Slackware 12 today but found out that I could no longer do a simple NFS install booting with 4 floppies as with 11.0.

"There is even loadlin, the DOS based Linux starter, but lets not concern ourselves with the past today. Slackware 12.0 abandoned the floppy boot altogether."

"With the release of Slackware 12.0, the era of floppy-boot has come to a definite end. The reason is simple - the Linux 2.6 kernel will not fit on a single floppy, even in it's most condensed configuration."

Would it still be possible to use floppies (2 for kernel if it's that big), since my bios doesn't support booting from usb? If not possible (or just unfeasable) I'll have to go with PXE.

edit: Perhaps it would be possible to use a floppy to let the pc boot from usb?

edit2: What would happen if I used boot and root floppies from 11.0 but installed 12.0 packages. As long as I install the new 2.6 kernel, it should work, right?

Hi,

Did you read the BOOTING.TXT?

You could look at this link.

The loop device would be another install method.

Edit: You could try the sbootmgr if your system supports usb. Sbootmgr will look for bootable devices.

Thanks for your reply.

First I tried sbootmgr but that didn't find anything to boot exept the windows hard drive. Then after while I found out that actually my bios CAN boot from usb. The drive just has to be plugged to a specific port (out of eight, no idea why). So I tried booting my usbboot.img catted (dd-d) to the drive but I get boot error with it although md5 hash was okay and cmp between the image and usb drive went well too. I don't have other drives to try with and I have no idea what's wrong so I guess I still have to download the isos and burn them.

I miss the time when installing Slack was still easy :'(

Any other ideas you have, I'm willing to try.

edit: Couldn't I write the usbboot.img to the cd and use this to boot?

So I left the two first Slack disks to torrent over night and are going to burn them in a minute. Perhaps when I get more accustomed with Slack, I'll be able to figure out an easier way to install without cd-s. Oh well, I feel awful for leeching though. I won't be able to seed the torrents, they'll be gone with Windows.

Thank you anyway.

Hi,

Did you look at Janux_Net post? The original link that I gave you was not correct. His technique will work since your usb will boot.

Another way would be to use the loop device period. Here is a search for install loop0 on the Slackware forum. You can/should do a search of the topic on your own. A lot of useful information.

Thanks for replying.

Yeah I tried that, didn't seem to get it to work. Is it possible that a pen drive is simply physically unable to boot? If not I must have screwed up somewhere.

Anyway, I currently have a nice working install of Slack thanks to those two cd-s but I'll look into the subject later.

Hi,

It would depend on your system specifications and your BIOS. The pen could be bad or just reformat the pen to see if that helps. Specify the the correct filesystem.