Este artículo muestra cómo iniciar el entorno de instalación de Slackware desde un disco duro en lugar de los medios de instalación habituales.

El entorno de instalación de Slackware es un pequeño sistema Live-Linux con busybox, particiones y algunas otras utilidades útiles, y el programa de “configuración”. Se inicia automáticamente cuando arranca su sistema desde los medios de instalación de Slackware: CD, DVD, memoria USB o PXE.

Para iniciar el entorno de instalación de Slackware sin crear medios de instalación, necesita una imagen de este entorno de arranque, un kernel de Linux adecuado y un cargador de arranque.

Con grub2 también puede arrancar desde el archivo iso agregándolo al menú grub.

Todo el software que puede usar después de iniciar el medio de instalación de Slackware reside en initial ramdisk image. Puede encontrarlo como /isolinux/initrd.img en cualquier medio de instalación o en la misma ubicación en cualquiera de los espejos de Slackware.

Slackware usa (al menos ahora) uno de sus kernels huge para ejecutar el entorno de instalación. Puede encontrar los archivos bzImage del kernel en los subdirectorios del directorio /kernel en el medio de instalación o en la misma ubicación en cualquier réplica de Slackware.

If you already have an ISO image of the Slackware install media you can mount this image with the loop option and copy the files, for example to a /boot/swsetup directory which you create yourself first.

• This is how that looks for a Slackware 14.0 64-bit ISO image:

  # mkdir -p /mnt/tmp /boot/swsetup
  # mount -o loop /tmp/slackware64-14.0-install-dvd.iso /mnt/tmp
  # cp /mnt/tmp/isolinux/initrd.img /mnt/tmp/kernel/huge.s/bzImage /boot/swsetup/
  # umount /mnt/tmp

• And for Slackware 14.0 32-bit:

  # mkdir -p /mnt/tmp /boot/swsetup
  # mount -o loop /tmp/slackware-14.0-install-dvd.iso /mnt/tmp
  # cp /mnt/tmp/isolinux/initrd.img /mnt/tmp/kernel/hugesmp.s/bzImage /boot/swsetup/
  # umount /mnt/tmp

You can also download the kernel and initrd image from one of the Slackware mirrors. There are some examples below.

• Slackware 14.0 64-bit:
  • kernel: http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware64-14.0/kernels/huge.s/bzImage
  • initrd: http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware64-14.0/isolinux/initrd.img

• Slackware 14.0 32-bit:
  • kernel: http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-14.0/kernels/hugesmp.s/bzImage
  • initrd: http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-14.0/isolinux/initrd.img

There are many boot loaders around. Slackware uses SYSLINUX to boot from the install media, installs LILO to boot the installed system, and provides a GRUB-legacy package in /extra (32 bit only). Many distributions use GRUB (renamed from GRUB2) as their main boot loader. If you use a Linux system you probably already have a suitable one. You need to put the bzImage and initrd.img files in a suitable place and instruct the boot loader to boot them.
Note that some parameters are passed to the kernel in /isolinux/isolinux.cfg; you need them to configure your boot loader properly.

Add to /etc/lilo.conf something like:

image = /boot/swsetup/bzImage
  initrd = /boot/swsetup/initrd.img
  addappend = "load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw printk.time=0 SLACK_KERNEL=huge.s"
  label = SwSetup

and run

# lilo

Add to /boot/grub/grub.cfg something like:

menuentry 'SwSetup' {
  set root='(hd0,2)'
  linux /boot/swsetup/bzImage  load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw printk.time=0 SLACK_KERNEL=huge.s
  initrd /boot/swsetup/initrd.img
}

Add to /boot/grub/menu.lst something like:

title SwSetup
  root (hd0,1)
  kernel /boot/swsetup/bzImage  load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw printk.time=0 SLACK_KERNEL=huge.s
  initrd /boot/swsetup/initrd.img

Add to /etc/grub.d/40_custom:

menuentry "Slackware 14 install (DVD)" {
 insmod loopback
 insmod iso9660
 set isofile="/slackware64-14.0-install-dvd.iso"
 loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile
 linux (loop)/kernels/huge.s/bzImage  load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw printk.time=0 SLACK_KERNEL=huge.s
 initrd (loop)/isolinux/initrd.img
}

Then update grub with:

 grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Reboot your system and select SwSetup at boot prompt.

If you have an unused partition you can install Slackware on it right now.

If you downloaded the Slackware DVD ISO image you can use it as package source.

• In the “SOURCE MEDIA SELECTION” step select “2 Install from hard drive partition”,
• enter the name of the disk partition containing the ISO image file, for example /dev/sda2,
• then type in the full path on that partition's filesystem to the directory with the DVD ISO image, for example /tmp/,
• and agree with the prompt to use the ISO image as package source:

  ┌──────────────────────SOURCE MEDIA SELECTION────────────────────────┐
  │ Please select the media from which to install Slackware Linux:     │
  │ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
  │ │           1  Install from a Slackware CD or DVD                │ │
  │ │           2  Install from a hard drive partition               │ │
  │ │           3  Install from NFS (Network File System)            │ │
  │ │           4  Install from FTP/HTTP server                      │ │
  │ │           5  Install from Samba share                          │ │
  │ │           6  Install from a pre-mounted directory              │ │
  │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
  ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
  │                   <  OK  >          <Cancel>                       │
  └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

  ┌────────────────────INSTALLING FROM HARD DISK───────────────────────┐
  │ In order to install directly from the hard disk you must have a    │
  │ partition (such as /dev/sda1, /dev/sdb5, etc) with the Slackware   │
  │ distribution's slackware/ directory like you'd find it on the FTP  │
  │ site.  It can be in another directory.  For example, if the        │
  │ distribution is in /stuff/slackware/, then you have to have        │
  │ directories named /stuff/slackware/a, /stuff/slackware/ap, and so  │
  │ on each containing the files that would be in that directory on    │
  │ the FTP site.  You may install from FAT or Linux partitions.       │
  │                                                                    │
  │ Please enter the partition (such as /dev/sda1) where the Slackware │
  │ sources can be found, or [enter] to see a partition list:          │
  │ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
  │ │/dev/sda2                                                       │ │
  │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
  ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
  │                   <  OK  >          <Cancel>                       │
  └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

  ┌───────────────────SELECT SOURCE DIRECTORY─────────────────────┐
  │ Now we need to know the full path on this partition to the    │
  │ slackware/ directory where the directories containing         │
  │ installation files and packages to be installed are kept.     │
  │ For example, if you downloaded Slackware into the /stuff      │
  │ directory on your hard drive (so that you have the            │
  │ directories /stuff/slackware/a, /stuff/slackware/ap, and so   │
  │ on each containing the files that would be in that directory  │
  │ on the FTP site), then the full path to enter here would be:  │
  │                                                               │
  │       /stuff/slackware                                        │
  │                                                               │
  │ What directory are the Slackware sources in?                  │
  │ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
  │ │/tmp/                                                      │ │
  │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
  ├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
  │                 <  OK  >         <Cancel>                     │
  └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

  ┌────────────────────────USE ISO IMAGE──────────────────────────┐
  │                                                               │
  │ An ISO image of Slackware's install DVD was found.            │
  │ Do you want me to mount the ISO image and use this as the     │
  │ package source?                                               │
  │                                                               │
  ├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
  │                   < Yes >          < No  >                    │
  └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Then continue as usual.

Slackware setup (starting with version 13.0) automatically finds an ISO image if it is named as slackwar*-install-dvd.iso.

You can also mount your image manually.

• Before starting setup or later from another console (use Alt+F# to switch to a different console number “#”), execute

  # mkdir /hd /iso
  # mount /dev/sda2 /hd
  # mount -o loop /hd/tmp/slackware64-14.0-install-dvd.iso /iso

• In the “SOURCE MEDIA SELECTION” step select “6 Install from a premounted directory”,
• In the next dialog window, enter the path to the directory containing the “package series”, meaning the subdirectories “a”, “ap”, …, “y”. This path would be /iso/slackware64 for a 64 bit system or /iso/slackware for 32-bit.

Then continue with the installation as usual.

• Originally written by Serg Bormant