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I was beating my head trying to figure out how to install Slackware from Windows. I could have gone the floppy disk route, but I had to be difficult because I wanted a bootable CD. The machine I wanted to use didnt have Linux already on it so there went that option. Honestly, Im lazy and just wanted to do this as simple as possible. Well Im not going to lie. I originally got this FAQ from »www.userlocal.com/articl ··· wto.html. But things didnt flow so well with me so I cleaned it up a bit and polished it up. Enough of my mouth and here we go.

1. Download the latest version of Slackware. Please see »All Things Unix FAQ »Where can I download Linux? if you need to know where.

2. Download cdrtools. The program we need is mkisofs. You can find the current version here: »ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrec ··· a/win32/

3. Extract the Slackware iso to any directory. There are many programs to extract an iso with. WinISO and isobuster are some programs.

4. Extract the cdrtools file to any directory. You will need winzip for this.

5. Next we will need to exclude some of the directories from the slackware-current directory so the iso image we create will fit on a cd. The slackware-current directory is just where you extracted it to-i.e. c:\slackware\*.* . There are suggestions in the readme.txt file in the isolinux directory as to what you may want to exclude.
You can exclude directories and files two ways:
A. use the -x parameter with mkisofs. The readme gives examples.

B. Move/delete the directories/files you want to exclude to another location not under the slackware-current directory or its subdirectories. You can just move the files you dont need or delete them. You still have the slackware iso if you mess up. I chose to delete all directories but the slackware, kernels, and isolinux directories.

6. If you don't already have one, make a temporary directory outside of slackware-current to create your iso image in. I used "C:\temp".

7. Using a text editor such as notepad, create a one line ".cmd" file to run the mkisofs utility with all its parameters. I called mine "iso.cmd". If you are using "C:\temp" for your iso image directory and you are moving out the directories you wish to exclude, as I did, you can just cut and paste the code below for your batch file.

Code:

mkisofs -o /temp/slackware.iso -R -J -V "Slackware Install" -hide-rr-moved -v -d -N -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 32 -boot-info-table -sort isolinux/iso.sort -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/isolinux.boot -A "Slackware Install CD" .

Copy or type all of this code into your editor on one line, without any returns. Otherwise windows will treat separate lines as separate commands and all of the parameters will not be passed to mkisofs. If you are using a directory other than \temp or \temp is on a different drive than slackware-current, you will need to edit the "/temp/slackware.iso" part of the code to match your drive or directory. If you are not moving out the directories you wish to exclude, you will need to use the -x parameter5 in your batch file to exclude these directories from the iso image.

Important! Please note the trailing "." at the end of the code listed above. This is the source path for mkisofs to copy files/directories from. That is not a period for the end of a sentence.

8. Save your batch file in the slackware-current directory using .cmd as the file extension. If you save and execute your batch file from a directory other than slackware-current, you will need to change the "." at the end of the mkisofs code listed above to the path to your slackware-current directory.

9. Now copy mkisofs.exe and cygwin1.dll to the directory where you extracted Slackware-i.e. c:\slackware\*.* . Now you could copy the contents of the cdrtools directory to your windows directory. This will put the mkisofs utility and needed cygwin1.dll in the search path so the utility can be run from any directory. I found it much easier to do it the first way. Were just going to use this program for these steps.

10. Drop to a command prompt (click start > click run > type command or cmd > press enter) and change to your slackware-current directory. Run your batch file (for example, type iso.cmd then press enter). You should now see the mkisofs progress status as it creates your iso image.

11. Burn the image file (i.e., slackware.iso) to cd using your favorite cd burning app. I used Nero 5.5.

12. Enjoy your new Slackware ISO.

The man page for mkisofs can be found at: »www.fokus.gmd.de/researc ··· .13.html

The homepage for mkisofs is available at: »www.fokus.gmd.de/researc ··· ord.html


Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
  • Good tutorial! Just a note, I have an old BIOS and changing the boot-load-size to 4 allowed it to load since 32 or even the bootable DVD/CD available for download off torrents/FTP/HTTP sites did not co-operate with my system.

    2007-10-25 01:38:22



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by proton666 See Profile edited by hacheelle See Profile
last modified: 2003-03-22 00:03:44