install Slack 14.2 ON not FROM flash drive

nix84 · 11-23-2016, 05:45 PM

My searches always end up with how to install FROM a Flash drive.
My initial efforts ended up blowing up M$ (like a big loss) on my HD.
Need to be able to move slak onto M$ machines with my software so they can run my stuff.
Need to install 14.2 on SDB! not sda. Instructions for 14.1 said need / (root) and swap. OK if on a BIOS machine I guess. Do I need something before that on my flash drive (like FAT32 EFI stuff??) before those?
What are the partitions to be and get me to the setup it is easy after that.

Ztcoracat · 11-23-2016, 06:54 PM

The partition manager will naturally pick sda.

While at the partitioning prompt type:

Code:

cfdisk /dev/sdb

Make your swap of 1 GB and than allocate the rest of your drive (sdb) to the /root fs.

-::-After that you should be well on your way to your 14.2 install.-::-

bassmadrigal · 11-23-2016, 07:58 PM

I think you'd be highly interested in Eric's Slackware Live. It's not the exact same as "installing" Slackware onto a USB drive, but it's pretty dang close. You can use dd to copy it the iso onto the drive, but this does not have persistence, so anything you do in a session won't be saved after rebooting. Or you can use his iso2usb.sh script to "install" it to the USB drive and enable persistence. This essentially becomes a full blown Slackware install on a USB drive. You can enable full or partial encryption using the script as well.

http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/slackware-live-edition/

kyknos123 · 11-25-2016, 10:27 AM

Installing GRUB
Mount the filesystem located on the USB drive:

Code:

# mount /dev/sdXY /mnt

Code:

# mkdir /mnt/boot

Install grub on the USB drive:

Code:

# grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --boot-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/sdX

In case you want to boot ISOs in UEFI mode, you have to install grub for the UEFI target:

Code:

# grub-install --target x86_64-efi --efi-directory /mnt --boot-directory=/mnt/boot --removable

For UEFI, the partition has to be the first one in an MBR partition table and formatted with FAT32.
copy iso to usb, mkdir /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Code:

menuentry '[loopback]slackware64-14.1-install-dvd' {
	set isofile='/boot/iso/slackware64-14.1-install-dvd.iso'
	loopback loop $isofile
	linux (loop)/kernels/huge.s/bzImage printk.time=0
	initrd (loop)/isolinux/initrd.img
}

from archwiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...boot_USB_drive

nix84 · 12-04-2016, 03:25 PM

@Ztcoracat: FWIW I am intending to use the flash drive on UEFI machines so I also need a /EFI partition to preceed the swap and filesystems partitions. Try gdisk it is faster and cleaner than cgdisk IMHO. Also swap must at leas equal and IMHO double the memory size if U ever have major problems.
@bassmadrigal: Looked at it. Did not find out if that method allows for storage on the flash drive, hope it does but for me the setup approach to installation is what I am used to as it gives me the (via Menu) option to exclude what for me is useless like typesetting, most KDE games, editors (except vi) and EMACS for space purposes on a 32GB drive.

bassmadrigal · 12-04-2016, 04:25 PM

You'd want to look at the iso2usb.sh script that Eric has available. See the wiki for more info on that. You can either use dd to copy the iso to the drive in a read-only mode, or use the iso2usb.sh script to enable persistence. You can even have that space encrypted.

To simply create a Slackware Live usb drive, grab the script and run the following (make sure you replace /dev/sdb with your actual device... and you may need to make the script executable):

Code:

/location/to/iso2usb.sh -i /location/to/slackware64-live-14.2.iso -o /dev/sdb

If you want a trimmed version of Slackware, you can use his make_slackware_live.sh to remove packages from the final iso. That's what he uses to build his xfce, plasma5, mate, etc variants. Check out the "Generate the ISO" section in the same wiki document (there doesn't seem to be a direct link to it).

He does have 4 additional ISOs already prepped:

a slimmed-down XFCE ISO (700 MB) with XDM as the graphical login manager. It fits on a CDROM medium or a 1 GB USB stick;
a ISO image (3.1 GB) of Slackware64-current containing Plasma 5 instead of KDE 4, with an addition of several other packages from the alienBOB repositories: vlc, libreoffice, calibre, qbittorrent, ffmpeg, chromium, openjdk, veracrypt.
a Mate variant (1.7 GB) where KDE 4 has been replaced by Mate (a Gnome 2 fork);
a Cinnamon flavour (a fork of the Gnome 3 Shell replacing Slackware's KDE 4).

If you want a basic install, you could use the xfce variant and then just use slackpkg to install any required packages you need that aren't included (rather than building your own ISO and removing packages from it).

Alien Bob · 12-04-2016, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bassmadrigal

Check out the "Generate the ISO" section in the same wiki document (there doesn't seem to be a direct link to it).

There is: http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:...nerate_the_iso

bassmadrigal · 12-04-2016, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob

There is: http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:...nerate_the_iso

Oh, cool. I guess they don't show all the links in the "Table of Contents". Thanks for the info