After connecting everything up to the target machine and putting the zip disk in place I boot the boot disk and at the boot prompt pass the parameters
mount root=/dev/sda4 ramdisk=0
to lilo.
Carefully read the instructions on the screen, then login as root and fdisk root and swap partitions on the target drive. Reboot the machine, again passing the above parameters to lilo.
Carefully reread the instructions on the screen, then login as root.
Even on machines with only 4 megs. of ram you will not need to create a swap partition until prompted to do so in the setup program. We already have swap running on the zip disk. Run the Slackware setup program:
setup
CAREFULLY read and follow the instructions the menus provide.
The first thing setup will want to do is create and initialize
your swap partition on your hard drive this is ok despite the
dire warnings and will not affect the swap file on the zip drive.
You do not want to allow /dev/sda4 to be automatically mounted and when questions come up about this in the menus. Do not add it unless this zip drive is dedicated to the target machine full time.
When you get the menu that asks where the source of the installation media is select item number 4. "Install from a premounted directory". The next screen will ask for its name it is /slakware.
I recommend installing only the "a" disk set at this time. It will crash the install if the person selecting packages gets greedy and fills the disk before lilo is written and the kernel is installed. During basic install I install the kernel from the boot disk only. There are relatively few choices to be made from here and the Slackware documentation from the cdrom or your ftp sight will do you much better than I can from here.
Leave the zip drive and disk in place after the initial install is complete. Remove the floppy when prompted to do so and reboot. If all is right in the world Bill, er, your friend/customer will have a working Linux system come up.
After rebooting the system login as root amd mount the zip disk again:
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt
Check available drive space:
df
Run setup again from your new system:
setup
Choose "s" SOURCE from the menu and press the enter key.
Select item number 4. "Install from a premounted directory" and press
the enter key again.
Enter the directory name. This time use:
/mnt/slakware
Choose the packages you want or need. All are available except those
which start with "x". When you're finished installing packages from
this disk exit setup and run:
umount /dev/sda4
You may now remove the disk and if X will be installed insert the 2nd
zip disk and work through setup again this time only packages begining
with X will be available. If you will be installing a custom kernel
from the prebuilt kernels you may also do this while the 2nd. zip disk
is installed.
This mini-HOWTO brought to you by the letters G. N. and U. and the Linux documentation project.
Special thanks to Dr. Randolph Bentson whose devotion to Linux inspired me to give something back to the people who gave us the ONE TRUE OPERATING SYSTEM.
I hope this helps someone.
Sincerely
Kevin Snively
P.O. Box 1013
Everett Wa. 98206-1013
USA
root@aldrovanda