Slack 8.1 Installation Disk
 

This is a useless question but... Did someone knows how I can boot using my Slack 8.1 Cd? It was really easy to boot from cd with Slack 8.0 but with 8.1, no matter what I wrote (but maybe I dont have the correct syntax?) I get the installation prompt menu. Can't I boot a not bootable system with the cd kernel image using 8.1 ?

Sorry, it isn't entirely clear to me what you are trying to do. Do you have a
Slackware 8.1 CD (download or purchase?) that you are trying to boot from?
If you downloaded the .iso and burned your own CD, are you sure you got
the correct one?
You can get the installation (bootable) CD from:
ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackwar...kware-8.1-iso/
Although it would be best if you used one of the mirrors:
http://www.slackware.org/getslack/

Once you have the .iso, which we'll call slackware-8.1-install.iso, you need to burn it to a CD.

To burn a CD:
In my experience, cdrecord works best:
http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/.../cdrecord.html
I will assume you have a working cdrecord (and working hardware) for now.

<cdrecord -scanbus> will give you device entry you need (you may need
to be root to use cdrecord, though you can easily fix that):

<cdrecord -help> will give you usage information

For example:

root@valhalla:~# cdrecord -scanbus
Cdrecord 1.11a24 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 Jörg Schilling
Linux sg driver version: 3.1.24
Using libscg version 'schily-0.6'
scsibus0:
0,0,0 0) 'SONY ' 'CD-RW CRX140E ' '1.0n' Removable CD-ROM

In this example, you would next put a CD into your burner, and then run:
root@valhalla:~# cdrecord dev=0,0,0 slackware-8.1-install.iso

After about 72/N (where N is the speed of your CD burner) minutes,
you'll have a bootable CD.

To boot with it, you need to have your BIOS set up to boot from CD,
and then you hit <enter> when you get to the boot prompt. Unless
you have some funky hardware, you don't need to enter any special
parameters at the boot prompt.

If you want to then use this CD to install, the welcome text should be
pretty informative, but you basically need to setup your hard drive
partitions, and then run <setup>.

If I've answered something that you already knew, sorry but I didn't
completely understand your question. If you're not satisfied, please
ask again!

Cheers,
Moses
[Slackware user since 1994]

To use your 8.1 cd to boot your install do "linux root = /dev/hd#" at the prompt.

Ahhhh thanx Aussie. I was omiting the "linux" section (as show in the first boot prompt msg), so I was getting the installation.
Dunno why Slack crew changed this boot-cd msg :(