I'm not a developer, but I have installed Zenwalk, Vector, and Absolute. I am familiar with Slackware derivatives. I wanted to make a USB install of SalixOS 15 on a Dell Optiplex Core 2 Duo, with 4 GB ram. The first thing I tried was an ncurses install of the Salix install disk to USB drive, a hard drive install with my fingers crossed. Hey, it worked with Mageia. That installation took 4.5 hours, and I think Lilo failed. I say, I think, because the install took so long I fell asleep, and so did the computer. When I woke up, I tried to wake up the computer, and the computer had a lot of lag, such that I accidentally clicked the wrong button due to lag. I decided I wasn't going to try that again. I tried SLI and instonusb installers, without a lot of forethought, and the installations failed. The SLI installs failed with this error condition as the USB drive was detected, whereupon the boot was interrupted.
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[ 7.65944] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc]Write Protect is off
[ 7.662287] sd 6:0:0:0: Write cache enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 7.678773] sdc: sdc1 sdc2
[ 7.690651] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 11.714391] random:crng init done
*** Live system error - live media not detected - exiting ***
sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
I thought the problem was the generic 32 GB USB 3.0 drive, so I tried a Sandisk 64 GB USB 3.0 drive and got the same error. I didn't just try once, I tried the SLI maybe 10 times with different settings, but all failed. Then there was the instonusb gui, which I tried many times. I finally noticed that first thing instonusb does during an install is write GPT partition tables to the USB drive. There's no stopping this action. I am using a BIOS computer. Everytime I used Gparted to redo partitions, I conscientiously made the device partition table MSDOS. But instonusb thinks the USB drive lacks a partition table so it writes GPT part tables to the drive. If user tries to say no to the GPT write, there's a lot of verbiage about hybrid MBR and how flakey it is, and columns of arguments that wouldn't accomplish anything, as instonusb writes the GPT tables to USB anyway. So, is it any surprise that instonusb wouldn't boot my BIOS computer. BTW there's no mention in the documentation that instonusb only works for UEFI computers. Correct me if I'm wrong.
After three or four long, long days of trying to install Salix, maybe 100 reboots and 25 hard shtudowns, giving it up and then deciding to try again, I finally installed Salix as a live install to hard drive. The installation took 4.5 hours, and then installed grub for another 45 minutes, after which I finally booted up a Salix Live USB installation. Unfortunately, Salix LIVE, thus installed as a hard drive, is almost unusable because of lag. I might also add that I really disliked the mandatory login AND logout. You should program some autologin options into the lightdm settings applet. That's a request.
Alternatively, it turns out that the Etcher ISO-to-USB burner can create a bootable Salix Live USB in about 4.5 minutes, 3.25 minutes to burn the ISO, and 1.25 minutes to verify the burn. Can we pause for a moment to contemplate the order of magnitude difference in time and effort to install Salix with Etcher freeware. You know, Gparted can't see inside a iso9660 file system, but I believe DiskDrake can see inside. I'm using an Etcher-generated USB to write this post, and it's light and fast, similar to the Live DVD, on the fly, as they say. Wouldn't it be nice if you could add persistence to an Etcher-burned USB installation of Salix Live 15.