nihili
09-30-01, 09:14 AM
This thread is a break off of the Best Linux thread. I'm trying to get slackware up and running. If you have a different favorite distro, I've probably alread failed at installing it. I'd like to run slackware because this is ultimately destined to be a headless machine primarily doing router/firewall and httpd, ftpd, telnetd work. It's a P133 with about 4 gig of hd, 80 meg of ram, and only a meg of vram. So it should be fine for very light server duty, but it ain't so hot at graphical gewgaws.
Originally posted by Hack
I am a bit confused by what you mean by "first stage" in the boot. Sounds a lot to me like you don't have a kernel sitting there for it to boot, assuming you're telling me you already installed the system at this point. Which I think is the case since you mentioned using a lilo boot disk. Yes?
Now, if you are telling me that you "haven't" got the system installed and you can't get the second stage disk to load, then I ask, Did you format the disks before you made them?
If so, which files did you write to them? bare.i which goes on the first boot disk and color.gz which goes on the second disk? If those are the files you wrote to the disks and you DID format them, I'd kinda figure you've got a bad floppy disk.
Hack
Ok, the install process started with two freshly formatted floppies, bare.1 and color.gz, and the latest slackware cd burned from the .iso. Both floppies loaded into ram, it found the cd, did the partitioning, formatting, assigning mount points, selected software, waited while it loaded everything onto hd, did all the post install configuration stuff it asked about and made a lilo boot disk when it wanted to do that. Finally it said that it was all done and ready to reboot. So I took out the installation media and rebooted. After the bios, first thing on the screen is "Stage 1". That's also the last thing on the screen. I let it sit for an hour just in case. Nothing.
Things I've tried:
Booting from the LILO floppy made during the install -
Same behavior as booting from hd. Gets to Stage 1 and stops.
Booting from the bare
Booting from bare.i
It boots into install. If I pass it "mount root=/dev/hda1" then I can eventually get into a console.
Double checking hardware:
BIOS is updated, boot sequence is floppy then hd. I've since managed to install and boot Mandrake 8.1. But if there's anything I hate worse than a turgid confusing operating system, it's a turgid confusing operating system pretending to be user friendly. Everytime I try to configure something in Madrake it smiles colorfully at me, acts like it's doing something and then goes off for a cup of coffee. It's all very lovely I'm sure, but at least with a config file I know what I'm getting. Anyway, my point is that since mandrake boots fine (from GRUB if that matters) it's not the hardware preventing the boot.
Using a /boot partition.
On the advice of a friend, I reinstalled using a 30 meg /boot partition. Same behavior.
Ok, that's all I can think of for now. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Taunts?
nihili
Originally posted by Hack
I am a bit confused by what you mean by "first stage" in the boot. Sounds a lot to me like you don't have a kernel sitting there for it to boot, assuming you're telling me you already installed the system at this point. Which I think is the case since you mentioned using a lilo boot disk. Yes?
Now, if you are telling me that you "haven't" got the system installed and you can't get the second stage disk to load, then I ask, Did you format the disks before you made them?
If so, which files did you write to them? bare.i which goes on the first boot disk and color.gz which goes on the second disk? If those are the files you wrote to the disks and you DID format them, I'd kinda figure you've got a bad floppy disk.
Hack
Ok, the install process started with two freshly formatted floppies, bare.1 and color.gz, and the latest slackware cd burned from the .iso. Both floppies loaded into ram, it found the cd, did the partitioning, formatting, assigning mount points, selected software, waited while it loaded everything onto hd, did all the post install configuration stuff it asked about and made a lilo boot disk when it wanted to do that. Finally it said that it was all done and ready to reboot. So I took out the installation media and rebooted. After the bios, first thing on the screen is "Stage 1". That's also the last thing on the screen. I let it sit for an hour just in case. Nothing.
Things I've tried:
Booting from the LILO floppy made during the install -
Same behavior as booting from hd. Gets to Stage 1 and stops.
Booting from the bare
Booting from bare.i
It boots into install. If I pass it "mount root=/dev/hda1" then I can eventually get into a console.
Double checking hardware:
BIOS is updated, boot sequence is floppy then hd. I've since managed to install and boot Mandrake 8.1. But if there's anything I hate worse than a turgid confusing operating system, it's a turgid confusing operating system pretending to be user friendly. Everytime I try to configure something in Madrake it smiles colorfully at me, acts like it's doing something and then goes off for a cup of coffee. It's all very lovely I'm sure, but at least with a config file I know what I'm getting. Anyway, my point is that since mandrake boots fine (from GRUB if that matters) it's not the hardware preventing the boot.
Using a /boot partition.
On the advice of a friend, I reinstalled using a 30 meg /boot partition. Same behavior.
Ok, that's all I can think of for now. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Taunts?
nihili