Sorry for the necro, but this thread is the one that helped me out.
I just installed Slitaz to a USB drive through this process:
Remove laptop hard drives (per a different thread; probably unnecessary)
Burn Slitaz 4.0 to CD -> boot & use TazPanel installer
Use web install with slitaz-4.0-core.iso from flavor list online
Remove CD and boot
Yay! Working!
Mess around to test permanence
Yay! Working!
Put SDD and HDD back in
Mess with GRUB
No luck
Find thread, boot to CD, "super user mode" to copy splash.xpm.gz to correct location
Edit menu.lst to:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinux-2.6.37-slitaz root=/dev/sdc1 rootdelay=8 quiet
Boot USB
Where I'm at now is that I get errors along the lines of:
EXT4-fs error
196972
I get a slitaz text login prompt and can log in that way, but startx fails
Is it because I used the flavor (slitaz-4.0-core.iso) instead of the slitaz-4.0.iso?
Thanks for taking a moment to read & help. I'm a linux noob, but I can follow instructions rather well.
Edit:
Looking at the docs linked from the site made me recall having trouble with xstart when I was trying to install PCLinuxOS awhile back. The problem had to do with the video driver that the OS was trying to choose for me sucking like hell. If this happens to be the same problem, I need to know if I can fix it from the text prompt I get, or if I have to do a new install with a different flavor. I know that I have an ATI card - I think a radeon 5000. PCLinuxOS was choosing a radeon2000 driver that wouldn't work.
Why is it that live CDs always work with video, but USB installs don't always?
Edit2: Did some Googling. Going to try adding lang=en and kmap=us to GRUB entry
Edit3: Added vga=788, too. Resulted in a line of penguins showing up. managed to see something about a block not being read or written or something.
Anyway. That prompted me to recall that I think I might have had the USB formatted as etx as according to a different thread i saw with someone who stated they got it working with ext2. But another thread said to use etx3. The error message I saw said something about EXT4-fs. So I don't know which I need. Checking docs.
Edit4: Going to reinstall with ext3 from the slitaz-4.0.iso (basic) via the web, since that seems to be the standard advice.
Edit5: Install done. Adding lang=en_us this time, instead of lang=en - wondering if I need to add screen size
Edit6: Liftoff! Changed root to hd 0,0 (since it reset to 2,0 since hdds were in) and booted up. Saw penguins twice. No problem.
However, it does load noticably slower. Is it not copying to ram now, or is that a consequence of it having to write some things to the USB even if it's running in ram?
Thanks to everyone for creating the helpful threads and working so hard on this project. Now that I know exactly what to do, I'll be spreading it around.
Final working order:
Install slitaz-4.0.iso to CD
Boot from CD
Insert USB
Format USB to ext3 in gparted
Open SliTaz Panel
Install -> Install Slitaz
Follow instructions w/ web "stable" and pointing to sdc1 (USB) [because I have two HDDs. Check USB location with gparted]
After install is finished, open PCMan
Select the CD-ROM
Tool -> Open Current Folder as Root
Browse to /boot/grub/ to get splash.xpm.gz
Copy splash.xpm.gz
Select USB (TOSHIBA etc etc for the one I used)
Browse to /boot/grub/
Paste splash.xpm.gz
Open menu.lst
Edit menu.lst entry to:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinux-2.6.37-slitaz root=/dev/sdc1 rootdelay=8 lang=en_us kmap=us vga=788 quiet
Save menu.lst
Turn off computer
Eject CD but leave in USB
Boot
VoilĂ ! Slitaz 4.0 running on USB with persistence