Installing from a USB memory stick

From ArkWiki

Ark Linux 2007.1 can be convinced to install from a memory stick. (This will NOT work for 2006.1 - if you're reading this before the 2007.1 release, get the "dockyard-devel" image, which is a development snapshot of 2007.1).

Get a memory stick with at least 700 MB space, and create a large partition with the FAT filesystem on it. Copy all files from the Ark Linux install CD to this partition.

Make sure the partition is set to "active" or "bootable" (those two terms mean the same thing when it comes to partitions - which of them you can see depends on the partitioning program you are using).

Copy the contents of the isolinux/ folder on the memory stick to its root folder. In the root folder, rename isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg

Lastly, install syslinux in the partition boot record. If you are using some variant of Linux, make sure you have at least syslinux 3.36 (e.g. from dockyard-devel) and run syslinux -sf /dev/sda1 (assuming your memory stick is /dev/sda). If you are running Windows, get syslinux from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-3.36.zip, unzip it, and run syslinux.exe -sf D: (assuming D: is your memory stick).

Reboot, and the installer should come up.

Do NOT use the "System Install" option - that will install to both the harddisk and the memory stick (it has no way of telling the memory stick apart from a harddisk). The other install modes will work.