For reasons unknown, RHEL and SL insist on publishing installer images that work only from the DVD physical media. But none of the computers I buy today have DVD drives and I am not sure if Staples carry DVD blanks anymore. I guess I must be happy that SL install images do not come on floppies, punch cards or paper tape.
Generally, this does not inconvinience me too much - I do most installs over the network (PXE boot). But sometimes I have machines generally not connected to the Internet (on a private network or out in the woods), so I have constructed bootable USB images for SL6.1 and 6.3. (6.4 on the way). (This installer tree is a copy of the .../x86_64/os tree minus the "Packages" directory, plus the isolinux/extlinux stuff and the DVD .iso files. The SL installer refuses to install from the "Packages" directory) (There is one caveat with running the installer from writable media - the SL6.3 installer sometimes writes the GRUB boot loader on the USB installer disk instead of the installation target disks - producing an unbootable system and ruining the USB installer disk at the same time. I have not seen the SL6.1 installer do this. Maybe one should use write-protect capable USB flash media). Download the stuff from here: http://trshare.triumf.ca/~olchansk/linux/ Instructions are here: http://trshare.triumf.ca/~olchansk/linux/SL63-64-USBBOOT/AAA-README-USBBOOT.txt Instructions for making USB-Bootable installation disk for 64bit SL6.3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0. These instructions are intended for making a 64-bit SL6.3 installer on a USB Flash disk. 8GB flash media is recommended. 1. The ISO DVD images are NOT included. Download your own copies, before following these instructions. 2. Prepare the USB disk: a) su - b) fdisk -H224 -S56 /dev/sdX, make one partition of type "83-Linux", mark it bootable. Result should look like this: root# fdisk -l /dev/sdX Disk /dev/sdc: 7996 MB, 7996440576 bytes 224 heads, 56 sectors/track, 1245 cylinders Units = cylinders of 12544 * 512 = 6422528 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 * 1 1245 7808612 83 Linux b) mke2fs -j /dev/sdX1; tune2fs -c0 -i0 /dev/sdX1 c) mkdir /mnt/tmp d) mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/tmp 3. Copy the data: a) cd to_the_directory_with_this_readme_file; rsync -av . /mnt/tmp b) cd to_the_directory_with_the_SL63_iso_images; rsync -av SL-63-*-DVD1.iso SL-63-*-DVD2.iso /mnt/tmp c) cd /mnt/tmp; chown -R root.root . 4. Make disk bootable a) cd /mnt/tmp/isolinux b) cat ./mbr.bin > /dev/sdX ### (*NOT* /dev/sdX1) c) ./extlinux -i . 5. cd /; umount /mnt/tmp 6. try to boot from the newly made USB disk. //KO 21FEB2013 -- Konstantin Olchanski Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow! Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada
