I want to use my -current iso's (disk 1 at least) to make a bootable usb flash drive to install Slackware from.

Ideas? I saw one somewhere, but can't find the article now...

Linux thin-client on USB key (flash) drive might be a good starting place.

Not an easy thing to do - in my experience it's a lot of faffing about. A quick summary would be:

- Copy entire Slackware CD (or an ISO image) onto the USB key
- Get the boot floppy images from the CD (it has one tacked onto the CD ISO to make it bootable but also keeps copies of several different images in /bootdisk and /rootdisk)
- You would need to edit the floppy image or create at a minimum the initrd and kernel that can boot from USB (i.e. include the necessary USB and USB Mass Storage modules, commands to mount the USB drive's partitions etc.), and use the USB as the root filesystem - this can a real pain in the backside on older machines, on machines that change what they detect the usb drive as (e.g. sda1, sda2 etc.)
- You could also use MEMLINUX or SYSLINUX to boot the floppy image but, again, you'll need to be able to access the USB disk

Look at Slax - it's a bootable Slackware distribution that runs from CD or USB - it will have a kernel/initrd already set up that you'll be able to use as a basis. However, to make a bootable USB key that works on ANY USB computer is a lot more tricky that the equivalent CD. And every computer has a CD drive that boot flawlessly nowadays.

http://www.linux-live.org/

Might be a good place to start. Some pre-made scripts that take account of USB booting issues etc.

I realized the same project in this way:

1. I formatted my usb-drive (2,2 GB, 1 partiton) with ext2 filesystem.

mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1

2. I mounted my usb-drive to /mnt/usb/ and copied the content of the first Slackware CD (installation CD) to /mnt/usb/.

mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb
mount /mnt/dvd
cp -R /mnt/dvd/* /mnt/usb/

3. Then I created a new /etc/lilo.conf (before I copied my original lilo.conf to lilo.conf.bak).

boot = /dev/sda
compact
default = slackware
vga = 791
image = /mnt/usb/kernels/bareacpi.i/bzImage
root = /dev/sda1
initrd = /mnt/usb/isolinux/initrd.img
append = "initrd=initrd.img load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_size=6464 rw root=/dev/ram SLACK_KERNEL=bareacpi.i"
label = slackware


4. I installed LiLO to the usb-drive.

lilo -v

Then I copied back my old lilo.conf for changes on my harddisk if neccessary.

5. After a reboot Slackware installation boots from usb-drive without problems on all machines which are able to boot from usb.

You can do the same with a FAT filesystem and syslinux as bootloader or even with ext2 filesystem and extlinux (included in syslinux - last version). The only difference is to change the isolinux.cfg to a syslinux.cfg or a extlinux.conf and install syslinux/extlinux according to the README in syslinux-package.

You can use other kernels (2.6.xy out of Slackware-current) and make your own initrd.img or copy the needed kernel modules in the existing initrd.img. Works without problems.

Fluxx.

Cool. Just what I was looking for.