Slackware 13.0slackware-13.0

Wed Aug 26 10:00:38 CDT 2009
Slackware 13.0 x86_64 is released as stable!  Thanks to everyone who
helped make this release possible -- see the RELEASE_NOTES for the
credits.  The ISOs are off to the replicator.  This time it will be a
6 CD-ROM 32-bit set and a dual-sided 32-bit/64-bit x86/x86_64 DVD.
We're taking pre-orders now at store.slackware.com.  Please consider
picking up a copy to help support the project.  Once again, thanks to
the entire Slackware community for all the help testing and fixing
things and offering suggestions during this development cycle.
As always, have fun and enjoy!  -P.

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+

+Installing Slackware using a bootable USB stick

+===============================================

+

+**WARNING:**

+  The procedure outlined below will destroy all data that is currently

+  stored on the USB stick you use to create a USB Slackware installer.

+

+

+Introduction

+------------

+

+    With the release of Slackware 12.0, the era of floppy-boot came to

+a definite end.  The reason is simple - the Linux 2.6 kernel will not

+fit on a single floppy, even in it's most condensed configuration.

+In this README, I will show you how to use a bootable USB stick to

+install Slackware.  This method - creating the USB equivalent of a

+boot/root floppy pair - is easy to use and fast. It requires that your

+computer is able to boot from USB-HDD.

+

+

+Booting the Slackware installer from a USB stick

+------------------------------------------------

+

+    The 'usbboot.img' file is a 25 MB small USB boot image that you can

+use to boot into the Slackware setup program.  The mini image does not

+contain any installable Slackware package.  In order to install Slackware

+you will need a local NFS/HTTP/FTP server or another Slackware package

+source like a prepared local harddisk partition.  This small image file

+works great, especially when you can't or don't want to use CDROM media

+as the carrier for the Slackware packages.

+The image is transfered to a USB stick in a matter of seconds.  Even the

+oldest and tiniest of USB drives is well suited for this purpose.

+

+    The usual way of installing Slackware from a network server repository,

+is to boot the Slackware CDROM, and run the ('pcmcia' and) 'network' script

+that load the drivers for your network card.  You need a working network

+card before running setup and go through the installation procedure.

+When you type 'pcmcia' and/or 'network', the Slackware installer would look

+for the appropriate driver files on an available CDROM, and if no CDROM

+is found it prompts you to insert floppy disks.

+

+    Now, with a boot from our USB stick we are assuming there is no CDROM 

+and no floppy drive available to us.  So, this USB boot image contains

+all the drivers you need and will not prompt you for additional 'floppies'.

+A consequence of adding all the network and pcmcia drivers to the USB image

+is that using a bootable USB stick is not a suitable method to install

+Slackware on old PCs that are low on memory!  The ramdisk will be more than

+30 MB in size, and you will need RAM for your kernel as well.

+

+

+Transfering the usbboot.img file to a USB device

+------------------------------------------------

+

+In order to create a bootable USB stick with the Slackware installer on it,

+copy the 'usbboot.img' file to a USB stick as follows:

+

+(1) In a Linux terminal if you're in X, or just from the console, change

+    directory to where the file 'usbboot.img' is located - you may have to

+    mount your Slackware CDROM or DVD first.

+(2) Insert a USB stick that is going to become your Slackware installer.

+    Note that all data the stick contains will be erased in the next steps!

+    You need to find out the device name for this USB stick.  Sometimes it

+    helps to run the command 'rescan-scsi-bus' if the USB stick is not 

+    being detected right away.

+    On systems without SCSI or SATA disks, the USB stick will usually be

+    assigned '/dev/sda' as the device name.  If '/dev/sda' already is your

+    SCSI or SATA hard drive, then '/dev/sdb' would become the device name

+    for the USB stick.  Be very convinced that you know which device name

+    represents your stick before you advance to the next step!

+(3) Transfer the image file to the USB stick using the 'dd' program.  In the

+    example command line below, I am assuming that the USB stick is known as

+    '/dev/sdx'.

+

+      dd if=usbboot.img of=/dev/sdx bs=512

+

+    Be careful about the device name for your USB stick!  The above 'dd' 

+    command will wipe out any existing data on the device, so you had better 

+    be sure that it is not the SATA hard disk you're targeting!

+

+

+Booting from the USB stick

+--------------------------

+

+    Your computer BIOS must support booting from USB HDD.

+

+    Plug the stick into your computers USB slot, and boot it up.  Make 

+sure you select boot from USB-HDD - how you do this is very dependent on 

+the type of computer you have.  Many computers will display a message 

+during the initial stages of the booting that says something like

+"Press [F12] for a boot device list".

+

+    The Slackware installer will start just like when you had booted from 

+a CDROM (maybe somewhat faster even).  Log in as root.  Start the install

+by partitioning your hard drive as usual, and running 'setup'.  If you want

+to install from a network server such as a NFS, HTTP or FTP server, you

+should run the commands 'pcmcia' (if your network card is a PCMCIA type)

+and/or 'network' prior to running 'setup' in order to load a driver for

+your network card.  If you want to install Slackware using a local hard

+disk partition in case you copied the content of the Slackware CDROMs/DVD

+there already, that is also an option.

+It would not make much sense to opt for the third install method to

+"use a CDROM" since we just abandoned the use of a CDROM medium :-)

+

+

+A remark about fdisk warnings

+-----------------------------

+

+    After writing the 'usbboot.img' to the USB stick, if you run fdisk -l 

+you will see alarming output like this:

+

+ This doesn't look like a partition table

+ Probably you selected the wrong device.

+ 

+    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

+ /dev/sda1   ?     8563200     8326647  2088818490    1  FAT12

+ Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):

+      phys=(124, 38, 11) logical=(8563199, 1, 16)

+ Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:

+      phys=(344, 195, 26) logical=(8326646, 0, 49)

+ Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.

+

+... and so on, for partitions 2, 3 and 4 as well.

+

+    This is actually harmless.  The 'usbboot.img' file was copied to the

+raw device, it did not create partitions at all.  Fdisk reads the information

+in the first sector and incorrectly interprets that as a messed-up device.

+

+

+Restoring a USB stick to its original state

+-------------------------------------------

+

+    When you have used the small 25 MB image to create a USB installer, 

+your USB stick is no longer useful for anything else.  Any remaining 

+space on the stick (assuming you used a larger-than 25 MB stick for it) 

+is inaccessible.  Fortunately, it is easy to re-create a FAT partition on 

+the stick (thereby removing the Slackware installer of course) so that 

+the USB stick again becomes available for carrying around your data.

+

+    Take care about which device actually is your USB stick !!! The next 

+command will render all data on /dev/sdx inaccessible !!!

+

+(1) First, wipe the bootsector of the USB stick:

+

+      dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=512 count=1

+

+(2) Then, create a new FAT32 partition on the stick and write a FAT32 

+    filesystem on it (vfat or type b in fdisk terminology):

+

+fdisk /dev/sdx <<EOF

+n

+p

+1

+

+

+t

+b

+w

+EOF

+mkdosfs -F32 /dev/sdx1

+

+    The 10 lines starting with 'fdisk /dev/sdx <<EOF' and ending with the 

+    single word 'EOF' is actually one single command spread over ten lines,

+    including the two empty lines in the middle.  This format is called a

+    'here-document'.  It allows you to use a command which expects interactive

+    input in a non-interactive way.  If you're uncomfortable with the above

+    command you can just run

+

+      fdisk /dev/sdx

+

+    and create a partition interactively :-)

+

+==========================================================

+Author:   Eric Hameleers <alien@slackware.com> 22-jul-2009

+Wiki URL: http://www.slackware.com/~alien/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:usbboot

+