Has anyone perfected the art of universal install of distros from a hard drive partition?

I have tried the approach explained here, but not working for me. I have only tried this approach with absolute linux, but I get through the installation process, but after it says it is complete, it didn't actually install anything. Absolute Linux is Slackware based so wondering if that may be a problem.

I'm wondering if I need to know a more descriptive information about bzImage and initrd than what's shown in the how-to link above.

I am using GRUB2 as well and followed the manual for GRUB2 as that how-to doesn't actually explain the correct approach with GRUB2.

Here is what I imput:

menuentry 'Install Absolute Linux (/dev/sda3)' {

	recordfail

	insmod part_msdos

	insmod vfat

	set root='(hd0,msdos3)'

	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 8420-4672

	linux	/bzImage root=UUID=8420-4672 rw quiet splash

	initrd	/initrd.img

}

The files were put into the root of a separate partition by themselves (/dev/sda3). 3 files, the iso image, bzImage and initrd.img. However, this approach is not working.

I haven't seen any other sites or explanations on this subject, but I am sure there is some kind of hack for this.

The installation was to a partition with ext3.

Upon installation completion, I already knew it wasn't complete becuase it took less than a second. However, when I mounted the installed partition, the only thing that was put into the partition was the iso image and /var directory with more empty directories:

[root@linwalker ~]# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
[root@linwalker ~]# cd /mnt
[root@linwalker mnt]# ls -l
total 24
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Nov 24 06:02 iso
drwx------. 2 root root 16384 Nov 24 06:01 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Nov 24 06:01 var

[root@linwalker mnt]# ls -l /mnt/var
total 4
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Nov 24 06:01 log

[root@linwalker mnt]# ls -l /mnt/var/log
total 4
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Nov 24 06:01 setup

[root@linwalker mnt]# ls -l /mnt/var/log/setup
total 4
drwx------. 4 root root 4096 Nov 25 06:03 tmp

[root@linwalker mnt]# ls -l /mnt/var/log/setup/tmp
total 16
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 9 Nov 24 06:02 return
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Nov 24 06:03 series
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Nov 24 06:03 tagfiles
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 643 Nov 24 06:02 tempscript

Since you use grub legacy successfully, I may just create a dedicated grub legacy partition and flag it for boot and grub mbr the boot for that partition when I do installs.

I have had no issues installing Slackware from hard disk via grub(legacy) using the files from the usbboot image

Success!

After your comment I went back to look at my approach.

I then added the mount loop. I used -o loop to mount my iso file on /mnt/isotemp, then copied the directories containing bzImage, initrd, and the package directory, (absolute) to my mounted installation source partition.

Then at the installation process, it dawned on my that I had been pointing the installer to my iso file instead of the distro package directory (absolute). So I pointed the installer to my package directory and the installation succeeded.

It turns out that Slackware based distros as Absolute Linux is, are the easiest to install with this method.

When I "ls -l" the directory after "mount -o loop /data/OS/absolute-13.6.1.iso /mnt/isotemp/" I find that the files are all read&write which allows me a simple install. However when mounting non-Slackware based distros, the files are all read-only, and the package that I must point the installer to are images instead of files.

I mounted Zenwalk, another Slackware distro, and it is read-write as well and should have no problems installing with this method.

I am working with non-Slackware distros to see if this will work universally as Slackware has already proven to be successful with this method. For the read-only distros I can copy over the files from the mounted directory with "cp -r <source files> /<target directory>", however, I still have the problem of dealing with images instead of files.

As an update, my current non-Slackware distro boots to it's screen but after a couple seconds fails to this message:

According to /mtab, /dev/sda7 is already mounted on /sysroot. Already mounted or /sysroot is busy. Then follows with "Unable to mount root files system".

However, my image and initrd is pointed to the correct files:

menuentry 'Install Fuduntu (/dev/sda7)' {

	recordfail

	insmod part_msdos

	insmod ext2

	set root='(hd0,msdos7)'

	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 8420-4672

	linux	/EFI/boot/vmlinuz0 root=/dev/sda7 rw quiet splash

	initrd /EFI/boot/initrd0.img

}

Also /dev/sda7 doesn't have an /mtab as it is only holds my isos, so I checked my distro holding grub, and /mtab doesn't show /dev/sda7, nor does /fstab.

I will continue to rummage around until I figure something out.