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