How to create a Portable SLAX USB Flash Drive. This guide will show you how to easily install SLAX to a portable USB device via Windows. SLAX is a small Live Linux CD distribution created by Tomas Matejicek. SLAX is basically a stripped down version of Slackware Linux. I've extracted the files from the slax rar to my desktop.if i run bootinst.bat now what happens? Will it install it to my computer as the operating system and from then on boot up on slax instead of windows? Or will it create a launch shortcut somewhere so i can boot up slax from windows? Do i have to open bootinst on a pen drive or cd or can i do it on my hard drive with the same outcome?

How to create a Portable SLAX USB Flash Drive. This guide will show you how to easily install SLAX to a portable USB device via Windows. SLAX is a small Live Linux CD distribution created by Tomas Matejicek. SLAX is basically a stripped down version of Slackware Linux. It uses the unification file system or (unionfs) allowing a read only filesystem to behave as a writable filesystem which allows the user to save system wide changes without a secondary persistent partition.

Newer versions of Slax (6.0.3+) appear to include install scripts and persistence is automatic.

SLAX 6.0.3 Screenshot:

Distribution Home Page: Slax.org

Minimum Flash Drive Capacity: 256MB

Persistent Feature: Yes

USB SLAX creation Basic essentials:

Slax Os

• A 256MB or larger USB flash drive (fat32 formatted)
  
• SLAX-6.x.x.tar
• 7-Zip or other archive extraction tool
  
• Windows Host to perform the USB install
  

SLAX USB installation tutorial:

This tutorial is obsolete! This tutorial or version of Linux is old. Please use the Universal USB Installer instead, as it can be used to install the latest version.

1. Download the SLAX for USB .tar file
2. Using 7-Zip extract the files from the slax-6.x.x.tar to the root of your USB stick
3. Navigate to the boot folder on your 'USB device' and click bootinst.bat (Click Continue if the following error appears)
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to make the device bootable
5. Once the USB install script has finished, reboot your computer and set your BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB device
6. Save your BIOS settings. On the next reboot, you should have a successful launch of your USB SLAX Linux compilation

SLAX is a lightweight version of Slackware Linux. It is fast, customizable, and quite functional when installed on a bootable USB flash drive. This section covers steps for preparing the flash memory device and copying system files to the device. Though illustrating a SLAX install, the procedure works with any live Linux distro.

Here are step-by-step instructions for manually installing Linux on a USB drive and booting with GRUB.

Supplies needed are:

How To Install Slax Modules

• A suitable Linux distribution, such as SLAX, BackTrack, Ubuntu, or Darn Small Linux.
• A USB flash memory stick, at least 1GB in size (must hold OS plus your data files)
• Disc image editing software for your PC (i.e. MagicISO for Windows; ISOmaster for linux.

Important: Make sure your computer's boot sequence (in BIOS Settings) lists CD/DVD devices prior to USB devices, and then your hard drive.

1. Download the live Linux ISO file onto your hard drive.
2. Download grubfolder.zip, unzip it, and open 'menu.lst' in a text editor. Scroll to the bottom of the file and remove (or comment out) the title, kernel, and boot lines for systems you don't have. For example, if you are going to use only SLAX, delete the Knoppix, Backtrack, and Bluewhite64 entries. Save and close the edited file. The 'grub' folder will be used in step 5.

   title SLAX 6.0.8 root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/slaxboot/vmlinuz vga=791 ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw copy2ram autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 initrd /boot/slaxboot/initrd.gz boot

   
   
3. For SLAX installations, obtain also the 'GRUB' and either the 'GParted' or 'QTParted' modules. Knoppix and Ubuntu come with GRUB and QTParted pre-installed :-)
4. For SLAX installations, use your ISO editor to place the modules into the /slax/modules folder.
5. Using your ISO editor, place the 'grub' folder (unziped) from your hard drive into the flashdrive's 'boot' folder.
6. Save the edited ISO with a unique name (don't alter the original).
7. Burn the ISO onto a blank CD or DVD.
8. Reboot into the newly burned live Linux disc.
9. When the system is up, insert the flashdrive.
   
10. Open a console ('Konsole' if you are using the KDE desktop), and type 'fdisk -l' and read the list of drives and partitions. CAREFULLY IDENTIFY THE FLASH DRIVE! In this example, it is 'sdb.'
11. Use Gparted (or QTParted) to reformat the flashdrive, and make it bootable. Select the FAT32 filesystem as the first or only partition if you want compatability with computers running Windows. If you want a separate partition for encryption, invisibility from Windows, or other features, set it up as a second partition after the FAT filesystem.

Tags: slax linux on a flashdrive, flashdrive linux, pendrive linux, pendrive backtrack linux