Have some old PC laptops which have no USB ports and no CD-ROM drives.

1) Why is a ZipSlack 12.0 UNavailable for such old PCs ??
Note that the old ZipSlack 11.0 site at http://www.slackware.com/zipslack/lists ZipSlack, while the current Slackware site http://www.slackware.com/ and new README text file /slackware/README.TXT completely OMIT this!

2) How can one obtain or easily create a ZipSlack 12.0 as Pat V did for 11.0 ??

3) If ZipSlack 11.0 can somehow be successfully installed on these old PC laptops, then would the ONLY path to obtain Slackware 12.0 be to follow the upgrade steps listed in the current /slackware/CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT and /slackware/UPGRADE.TXT for 12.0 ??

TYIA for any help on this, both for this one and for any other Slackers with similar questions!

If ZipSlack is the same as it used to be, years ago, when I tried it -- that is, it uses the UMSDOS filesystem -- then I can tell you, from personal experience, that it is a) crash-prone and b) will corrupt the hell out of your DOS filesystem when it does crash. (To the point where I'd have to run "scandisk" multiple times to repair it.)

In other words, trying to emulate a Linux filesystem on top of an MS-DOS filesystem is not a good solution, regardless of how you manage to get it installed on your PC.

The umsdos file system is not supported under kernel 2.6 so there will be no more zipslack. I'd suggest you use zipslack-11.0 and then upgrade packages manually, or ven better build from source. This won't work for everything though as some stuff will require the 2.6 kernel.

*If* you can transfer zipslack to ext3 partition:

Install zipslack-11
Move to ext3 (instructions provided in zipslack-11
upgrade to Slackware-12 (since no zipslack)

Optionally: Make a backup of your work for future installations.

Basically, the answers from these are to 1) perform the zipslack 11.0 installs followed by the upgrade steps listed in the current /slackware/CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT and /slackware/UPGRADE.TXT for 12.0, or 2) take the laptop hdds out, use a second laptop to put these in which has a floppy drive for the Slack12.0 network.dsk and PCMCIA NIC for a network install.