Installing slack without bootable CD.

[deanrantala]

I have become pretty good in understanding linux and installing it, but trying this with slack and a boot disk is nearly impossible.

Is it possible to install slack on a system without a bootable CD? I know they "say" you can do it, but after searching JL, and goolgle, the only thing I find is that

A:)Everyone else seems to have this same problem with slack and boot disks (could they make this any harder?)

B)Gone are the days when installation from a floppy was rather painless.

C)There is a conspiracy to promote Debian by flooding every google search with mindless, irrelevant stuff about debian.

Heres what I belive I have found so far:

1)I need a basic boot disk - usually "bare.i". And that I can use the dd if xxx of xxx command to write it.

2)I need a root disk or two to finish what the first should have done in the first place.

3)It might be possible to download all three files.

Please tell me in plain english, Where can I find all these files, How do I copy them to disk, and what else do I need to know or what am I missing?

Somebody please.....

PS: I DO NOT see the files I need on the slack CD - nad it is a good CD, because I have installed with it quite a few times.

[andysimmons]

This page tells you where to download the files:

http://www.slackware.com/install/bootdisk.php

[hyp_spec]

It's quite simple to do, I'm glad slack9 went back to 2 rootdisks.

ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware-9.0/bootdisks
grab the bare.i file there and use 'dd' to write it to a floppy (dd if=bare.i of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440)

then head on over to ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware-9.0/rootdisks and grab install.1 and install.2 and to the same thing as the bootdisks, boot up and it's just like a normal slack install!



o.o and there IS a debian conspiracy.... convinced me to switch from slack! (god what has this world come to!)

[psi42]

One thing I found confusing was that it says to use "color.gz" as the rootdisk, but then I found that color.gz was 2.2 MB! Later on I discovered that I needed 2 install discs instead of 1.

What you need are:

bare.i -- boot disk
install.1 (I think that what it is called) -- root disk
install.2 -- Another disk :)

You can get them from the slack ftp site.

So what you will want to do is write the images to disks with dd if=img of=/dev/fd0 and then boot with the bare.i boot disk. The kernel will boot from that disk and it will prompt you to insert the other 2 disks, and then you are ready to install!

~psi42

[janet loves bill]

Originally posted by hyp_spec


and there IS a debian conspiracy

There is a program in Slack called .......rpm2tgz that Volkerding graciously provided......it converts rpm's to tgz extension so the slack package manager can install. THERE IS NO program called deb2tgz...I guess Patrick V realized that Debian isn't really going anywhere as far as Linux/Unix is concerned...............the debbers and gentoo-ites will still be around in the future,---------- but...........Nobody will really care........LOL

Once you Slack, you Never go back!!:D

[Gaxus]

Well you could always use alien :p

I Slacked... and went forward to Debian. :D

Although I need to try Slack with swaret and see what it's like.

[deanrantala]

Yeah, the "color.gz" thing is what has me confused. The slack site says you need the color.gz rootisk (RTFM) and it just boots the system to a kernel panic:eek: . I'm gonna download the install1 and 2 disks and give it a shot.


Once you Slack, you Never go back!!

Whats more, its hard enough to think of going back to Another distro - but just try to imagine going back (or just switching to) Windows:D

S L A C K E R 4 L I F E:D :D

[deanrantala]

:) :)

Worked great. Thnx much...

Deano...

:) :)