I'm using a Dell Wyse 5070 with only 8gb of SSD space which is probably the issue...but I excluded any non-essential package groups and I believe I checked the hard disk size after install and I had 1gb left.

The issue is after the install completes, and I reboot the PC, I just get a standard bios message that no boot sector/disk could be found. So it looks like LILO is not able to execute properly. I am using the latest Debian version as of now, Ubuntu 20.04 also does not work on the Wyse 5070.

I know this isn't much to go off of, just kind of want to document this for anyone else, but anyone have any ideas?

What are the specs? Do you have an actual 8gb ssd from the dark ages or is it an eMMC? eMMC will not boot with the the huge (or generic kernel) without a proper initrd.gz to support eMMC. These thin client things which are geminilake or later generation probably have no legacy bios. You are probably forced to use UEFI which means elilo (not lilo) for newbs on slackware (uefi grub on slackware is a little much for a newb).

Next time you boot into Slackware, off your usb, open Gparted/parted and see where the boot flag is.

If Gparted does not indicate there is a boot flag, add it to the relevant partition then apply the changes.

After closing parted, run lilo or elilo (whichever is applicable).

You might also find parted does not the / partition is formated to not what you desire.

If this has happened, format the partition to what you desire.. .. .. this may wipe your install. Which means a re-install.

Lilo wont run if it is not found.

I believe it is an eMMC, it's a little module screwed onto the motherboard. The wyse 5070 does have a legacy mode so I am guessing it's what you said about having a proper initrd.gz to support eMMC.

Do you know why slackware 14.2 does not work for eMMC by default? Does -current support it?

Post the output of Slackware-current supports emmc, have to use the generic kernel with an initrd.gz

I am not really sure why eMMC support is not in the huge kernel. eMMC is mostly used in tablets and chromebooks. An initrd.gz is not a terrible burden. Googling for half an hour should be all you need to teach yourself how to do it. You don't seem to be clueless as you kind of know what you are doing looking at the motherboard to determine if its eMMC and figuring out the legacy bios mode exists on the Wyse on your own and all that.
To make an initrd.gz on slackware you first look at the slackware docs to learn how to use the mkinitrd tool correctly (10 minutes).
Then google to find which kernel modules to load to make your device bootable. In your case you will have to load modules for the eMMC block device and whichever filesystem your are using (such as ext4 , btrfs , xfs or whatever)- 10 to 20 minutes. Since you are using initrd.gz you might as well use generic kernel. Then add a line to your bootloader pointing at initrd.gz (10 minutes of google).

I've made initrd.gz before on Slackware and even followed someone's post here to get luksencrypt...or I think it was dropbear to work on boot. Slackware ended up working really nice with it, better than any Debian solutios, I could have luks encrypted partitions on a headless machine and SSH remotely and it always worked without fai! Whenever you know how to use Slackware it then is just a matter of plugging things in and it won't get in your way.

I'll take a look at your comments and Google, my main issue will be is after the install I will need to chroot (slackwiki is awesome) into the slackware installation and then generate it there. So I guess I don't need -current yet, I will try 14.2 with a proper initrd.gz and if that doesn't work I'll look into -current.