Slackware on USB flash drive

adds2one · 03-17-2006, 07:55 PM

Is it possible to install Slackware to be bootable from a USB flash drive? I know that there are some smaller distros(Runt Linux, Damm Small Linux, Slax Linux, Puppy Linux, Feather Linux) that can do this but is it possible to do this with Slackware itself? It would be so cool to have Slackware in my pocket wherever I went!

J.W. · 03-17-2006, 08:20 PM

As long as your flash drive has sufficient capacity to hold your Slack install, then Yes. (If you've got a 1G pen drive and a fairly minimal install, it could work) Note that the ability to boot off a USB device depends on the PC's BIOS -- if you see USB listed as an option then you're OK, if not, you're not

Freedom Seeker · 03-17-2006, 09:56 PM

Check out slackware.com and look for zipslack. The authors made a version just for zip drives.

syvy · 03-18-2006, 06:57 AM

Instead of a full Slackware try Slax.
It´s working well on a USB Pendrive here.
It´s customable and feels like Slack ´cause it is Slack.

Randux · 03-18-2006, 11:13 PM

I have a small Slackware machine I keep around for command line use including stuff like kernel headers and compilers and it can fit on a 256M USB drive. Give it a try, why not?

You have to have a BIOS that can boot from it or it won't make a difference if you have a 120G USB drive...

danieldk · 03-19-2006, 06:20 AM

Sure, no problem! But it is best to keep two things in mind about the filesystem:

- Use a filesystem without a journal, blocks in solid state memory can be rewritten much less than a normal hard disk, and a journal is a small space on a drive that gets rewritten very often. ext2 will do fine.
- Add the "noatime" option to the filesystem options in /etc/fstab. This will prevent inode updating every time a file is accessed. This will speed up things a bit.