Installing slack in a notebook with only hdd and usb memory stick as storage devices?
 

The notebook is right now my only computer. I have two partitions for Windows 7 (preinstalled by someone I do not know) and I just made a 3rd 20-GB partition whish is now raw. I also have Cygwin running on Windows. If by some means I ould formmat it for ext2, then I could make the LFH on it and load installpkg, and other packages as well (say the basic series). Is there a chance this would work?

It sounds like you're looking to install Slackware from an alternate device, since you don't have access to a CD-ROM? If such is the case, there are a couple of options. The usb thumb drive installer sounds right up your alley, found here: http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...ckware:usbboot

The other option, PXEBoot installer is probably out of reach for you since the laptop is your only computer. Good luck and enjoy Slackware!

You can install from a USB thumb drive, but you probably should, if you can, invest in a USB Optical drive it would be more preferable.

20GB will be a tight space as you will want enough space for swap as well as the /(root) partition at least. As far as partitioning, Ext4 would be your best choice.

As far as Cygwin goes, I don't know if I can accurately say you could cross-compile stuff using Cygwin for GNU/Linux, but you're best choice is a native install.

What are the full hardware specifications as well?

Get one of the hybrid Slint installers here (take the most recent one) see how to use it (download, check, put on your USB stick) there and off you go. Before running "setup" run cfdisk to tag your third partition as Linux, then "setup" will propose you to use it as / (root). When asked, accept to format it as ext4 (the installer will do that for you). No need to use Cygwin or do anything complicated.

Also 20GB should be enough, don't make any other partition and don't use hibernation so you won't need extra space. You will be able to read and write to your Windows partition from Linux if you want, so you can store huge files there from Linux if need be.

The DVD iso can be written directly to a usb after processing with isohybrid.

If you need to be a bit more selective due to lack of usb space: http://mirrors.slackware.com/slackwa...nux/README.TXT

Slackware 14.1 install ISOs was released as hybrid images, no need to isohybrid them once more.

I don't know if this is the case in Argentina but in France it's hard to find an USB stick with a capacity less than 4 GB nowadays.

I wounder why this is not the default.
not wasting a DVD is not just good for the enviroment, also the installation works much faster from USB,
especialy if you are Windows, runnign isohybrid is a bit difficult.
Having an USB able immage per default and a link to win32 disk imager or a similar software would not be wrong

On Windows Rufus, free and open source, works well. That said, I agree that it's generally better to provide already hybrid ISO images, as now do Slackware and Slint. However there have been a discussion lately on the Syslinux mailing list about what are the best settings depending on the ISO size to avoid having more than 1024 cylinders, that some old BIOS can't cope with (because their designers decided that USB sticks didn't need EDD support, according to H. Peter Anvin), so in a few case it *could* still be preferable to let the user post-process the ISO file, as does Debian IIRC.

I'm in the process of downloading Didier's ISO image, though the bandwith is narrow.

did not know that, thanks for the link, will try it
the things I tried (live usb creator and co) where painfully slow and/or coulnd open images they had no in list and/or had a terribe interface and/or where slow,
so I decedid for me just dumping the image via imageUSB or Win32DiskImage work best for me

I already have the slint ISO image in the hdd ready to transfer to the pendrive. Where to within the pendrive exactly?

Follow the instructions in http://slint.fr/installer.html. In brief:

• In Linux use the dd command as advised in that page to put the ISO image on the USB stick (or pendrive)
• In Windows download and use the Rufus application to do that with a GUI.

Is something unclear?

Unfortunately the industry sees thumb drives as reusable non-archival media, and really that's what they are and I doubt that will change.

Yes, plastics and the such are "bad" for the environment, but then again, unless you're one who may be unfortunate enough to have a low quality CD/DVD/BR disk burner that, even at the lowest speeds, can't effectively write to media without an error, how often does one waste a blank disk?

[FALSE ALARM: erased by the author]