After perusing http://www.slackbook.org/html/book.html I loaded huge.s/bzImage and initrd.img using Grub EFI on a multiboot PC with formatted ext4 partition and existing /home and /usr/local. Downloading PACKAGES.TXT "succeeds" to process 1364 packages. Then I select only category A, then full, but nothing downloads, with a lot of 404s flashing the screen.

Fixed IP setup didn't ask anything about a nameserver, only IP, netmask and gateway. HTTP source name wasn't found, so for source I used the kernel.org IP found via traceroute. I created /etc/resolv.conf file on the target via tty2, but it seems ignored.

What's the trick to have working nameserver for installation? What am I missing?

a little confused by this post... huge.s usually does not require an initrd, because most of the kernel features are built-in instead of using modules, so they can be found and used when booting up; initrds are usually used with generic kernels, whose features are modularized, and the initrd contains the modularized kernel features needed for booting, such as file system modules...

are you trying to install over a network? did you boot off of a slackware install media, or off one of the other systems on your multiboot that share the /home and /usr/local (btw, slackware doesn't put much into /usr/local)...

From a working installation, I usually mirror the entire slackware-14.2 (or -current) directory tree, then navigate to the /usb-and-pre-installers directory, and run the usbimg2disk.sh script to create slackware install media on a thumbdrive; and then boot off of that thumbdrive, login as root with no password, and run setup. After that it is just following the prompts in this ncurses based slackware installer...

Eventually I figured out the necessary hardware support for booting, storage and network are in the installation kernel and the installed kernel.

I was. I'd still like to know what it takes to clear the cannot find errors.

I used approximately this grub stanza:I tried several iterations that produced similar results and failures. Once booted and target and swap mounted I ran setup, then just followed my nose through the screens shown in section 3 on http://www.slackbook.org/html/book.html. Everything seemed to go OK other than getting 404s for every package in some iterations, 503s in another, as if it knew the packages it wanted, but couldn't reach any mirrors, even though it claimed to have found and processed PACKAGES.txt.

I try to download only what's needed to do one installation, one kernel, one initrd, no matter what distro I wish to install. 14.2 installation started this way, it simply became useless.

Eventually I did the wasteful thing, downloaded, burned and booted the DVD .iso, and installed a. I fetched mc and slackpkg with this PC, copied them from this to the target while booted to something with working LAN access, and got the two packages installed. Now I'm frustrated trying to find something to explain why there is no /etc/slackpkg/mirrors, what is required to make an attempt to nfs mount not produce its usual useless wrong fs type complaint that results from absent nfs support, and whether there are any docs in an a installation that explain how to get package management expanded into a useful state for finding out what's on the mirrors and fetching/installing.

From the networking section of the slackbook:

??? Is that supposed to help with enabling mounting my LAN server's exports? I wasn't trying to install from NFS (and don't anticipate doing so, as it's opposite my philosophy of minimizing wasteful downloads).

Where is that in the Slackbook? I was looking at 3.2.2, and the only networking install option I saw was via NFS, when there is a NFS export of slack tree already set up somewhere on your network.

NFS and HTTP are different and run on different ports... so you have to have the nfs ports open... and you would have to have a nfs server to connect to... generally, nfs port is open on local network interface, and closed on any public internet interface... But you can run nfs through a vpn to some remote nfs server...

Have you set up an nfs export of the slackware directory tree on a nfs server?

I see. You mention the slackbook: but I don't see any sections on installing over HTTP.

But, that doesn't mean it's not possible!

You could run usbimg2dsk.sh and have it make a bootable usb that doesn't contain the slackware tree, such that you wouldn't have to download it in advance... Once you boot off of that, you'll have busybox, which includes ifconfig, so you should be able to configure your network. For static ips, you do configure /etc/resolv.conf manually. Busybox has wget and ftpget, so you could get whatever packages from slackware mirrors you want. You don't have to use "setup" to install them. You could make a mountpoint, say /target, and then mount your target partition/s there (you might have to create the file systems first though). Then you could install the packages you downloaded with installpkg --root /target. You'd have to manually configure /etc/hosts, /etc/fstab, and your bootloader that way though.

I don't think I saw anything about it there.

HTTP has been my installation method almost exclusively for over a decade, begun with SuSE, which in 2003 had no other option I was able to discover. HTTP is how updates happen at least for most people. It only makes sense that HTTP as an installation source exists whether it's documented or not. It's hard to fathom that as mature as Slackware is that it wouldn't support it.

It is among the selections on the 14.2 version of http://www.slackbook.org/html/instal...p-source-w.png I encountered after booting the installation kernel and initrd.

I don't understand your fixation on NFS vis-a-vis installation. Might it have a direct bearing somehow on $SUBJECT?

What I care about vis-a-vis NFS is connectivity post-installation. On other distros, all I usually do is install nfs-kernel-server, which pulls in portmap or rpcbind or whatever else is required to become a successful NFS client, with server capability being a mere bonus effect.

No.

Perhaps if you can comment on the strings you entered during the setup of the HTTP source location? Stuff like ervername / IP address etcetera? The installation screens should be self-explanatory. But here is some more info:

The text "What is the URL of your FTP/HTTP server?" expects an answer like: "http://mirrors.slackware.com/" or http://192.168.0.11/" - or a ftp URL of course. No pathname. The next question will be "There must be a directory on the server with the Slackware packages and files arranged in a tree like the FTP site. The installation script needs to know the name of the directory on your server that contains the series subdirectories. For example, if your A series is found at /slack/slackware64/a, then you would respond: /slack/slackware64 . What is the Slackware source directory?" and here you enter the path section of the complete URL.
The two answers will be contatenated to something like "http://192.168.0.11//slack/slackware64" and wget will attempt downloading the PACKAGES.TXT to determine the proper subdirectory.

If you are getting 404 errors (file not found) then either the HTTP mirror server you selected is broken or you entered an incorrect pathname.

Note: if you want name resolution, your network needs a DHCP Server. If you opt for manual IP setup, then you need to know the IP of every network host you will be talking to.

During the process I'm looking at two screens. Using one for the installation, the other for the instructions to follow or the source URLs, to verify accessibility and validity. The server URL was not accepting a name, so I used traceroute to discover an IP to substitute, after which I was able to proceed through the directory successfully and see apparent success fetching PACKAGES.txt.

It's vexing to have an online resource found in one step, only to have others from the same server inaccessible in subsequent steps.

Why isn't there a screen for inputting DNS server following those for IP/netmask/gateway? Why wasn't my creation of a valid /etc/resolv.conf and /mnt/etc/resolv.conf a solution?

OT: I may be in no position to follow-up. I'm on the coast of FL being threatened by Hurricane Michael storm surge potentially eliminating my house.

Network installs are not intended to make use of an online mirror server. The concept behind the HTTP/FTP install option was that you use a server in your LAN which contains a local mirror. This to alleviate the pressure on online mirrors, none of which are owned by Slackware or the development team.
Meaning: you should be able to perform installation using only IP addresses.