can't determine problem with Grub or lilo

Grey_1 · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 8

Given the topic I'm sure it's a user error, I just can't figure out what..My rig is pretty basic, 80gb max on ide 1, dvd and cd-rw,athlon 2800+ and nforce2. I'm doing a stage3 install off the net using the gentoo-dev-sources, 2.4.22-gentoo-r7 kernel and the entire install goes error free til bootloader time. After partitiong "hda1@100mb-bootable, hda2@15gb for /root, hda3 @ 800mb for swap and hda4 @ 10gb for /home. I mkdir the /mnt/gentoo/boot and the /mnt/gentoo/proc, activate swap and mount all parts + bind mounting the /mnt/gentoo/proc. O.K. With grub after setup (hd0), I quit and nano into grub.conf. and title=Gentoo 2.4.22,root= (hd0,0), kernel (hd0,0)/kernel-2.4.22-gentoo-r7 root=/dev/hda2. I get kernel panic trying to boot from this. Lilo installs fine til I try to /sbin/lilo. It says I have DEV_FS as an option but not in the kernel boot command line. I have no idea what that is and am getting very confused by this. I even went back to make menuconfig and went thru the options hoping to find it. Yes I have printed out and tried a bunch of suggested /boot/grub/grub.conf's from the site. Please help!!!! Thanks in advance for any replies!
_________________
Stubbornly becoming teachable again=)

_sparky_ · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 20

Grey_1 · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 8

_sparky_ · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 20

Grey_1 · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 8

Thanks again sparky...I've got to take this rig down to get back to gentoo (Only have the 1 box at present), but I did find another post where the member simply installed fedora on the remaining space on his hdd and placed fedora's grub install in gentoo's mbr. Says it works like a charm. And being as this is my 5th or 6th attempt I'm looking for an easier way out, haha. If it still won't boot after that, I guess I know the problem is elsewhere? Thanks again sparky for your time! Phil
_________________
Stubbornly becoming teachable again=)

_sparky_ · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 20

If you follow the directions to the letter, you should have a working Gentoo system on the first try. I'm assuming you don't have any exotic HW or anything like that.

_sparky_

Kalki · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 10

Grey_1 · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 8

Hi Kalki, sparky....sparky, the most exotic piece of hw I have is an old 9700pro. The drivers emerged fine for that. I tried the fedora grub install trick and fedora boots fine but not gentoo, grub pointed to hda. I retried grub and the message I get now is 'file not found' referring to my kernel command line. When I ls /boot, I see 'kernel-2.4.22-gentoo-r7' , 'grub' , and 'grub.conf.. so I have a path wrong in grub.conf maybe? default 0, timeout 20, splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz, title=Gentoo 2.4.22, root (hd0,0), kernel (hd0,0)/kernel-2.4.22-gentoo-r7 root=/dev/hda2. Should my kernel command be (hd1,0) or (hd0,1) to point from the mbr to root? I questioned /etc/fstab as well, but if I'm not mistaken, if it won't boot fstab isn't even a player yet. btw, Kalki, the error looks to be verbatim what I got trying lilo. Is it possible this is a kernel compilation error? My file systems are all ext3 (mke2fs -j) is there anything in the 'files' support section which should be enabled , I compiled support for everything ext2 and 3 I could find. It's almost like it just won't read the file types. SIGH...maybe I'm just reaching. Thanks again......Phil
_________________
Stubbornly becoming teachable again=)

Grey_1 · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 8

links2...takes some getting used too. Well, trying to chroot back in, now the error message is that bin/bash does not exist. I have no idea what I did as I've been back and forth into and out of it trying to fix this boot issue. I'm thinking re-install. Ideas anyone? Thanks.......Phil
_________________
Stubbornly becoming teachable again=)

Kalki · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 10

your root device isn't hda3? if it is, change that in grub.conf

i installed grub and i'm booting up mostly well, save for a minor superblock dev/BOOT error that fsck corrected, i hope

i just went into my lilo.conf and deleted all the lines with Ctrl-K, then saved it as a blank lilo.conf file. then i emerged grub and it installed fine.

i just did a first-time install from stage 1 and so far, so good. make sure to follow the online handbook (if you have two machines), or from the cd-rom.

read, follow, but make sure to pay attention to which architecture you have!

Grey_1 · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 8

hello again, actually got it booting fine now. I reinstalled lilo to hda1 and that solved the boot problem. Now wrestling with x. I'm following the Gentoo linux desktop config guide, but I think I installed the wrong ati drivers. I'm going to try the 'dri' version next. When I try to startx, it crashes telling me the drivers don't support 24bit, or 16 for that matter. Kalki, glad your up and running... I do have to admit I get a little 'hurried' at times..lol. Hopefully I'm on the right track now. Thanks
_________________
Stubbornly becoming teachable again=)

ZeroPhile · n00b Joined: 12 Mar 2004 Posts: 29

I noticed that lilo was mentioned in here... yet I did not see anything pertaining to a fix... I myself get the Kernel panic using lilo as it refers to no being able to mount hda3..

I have kernel 2.4.25 on now and it will boot flawlessly with this kernel.. yet when I try to use 2.6.x I get the kernel panic everytime. I have recompiled 4 or 5 times thinking I forgot something here or there and everytime it compiles perfectly... What am I missing????
_________________
If I was in my right mind. Would I still make left turns?

_sparky_ · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 20

Kernel panics can be caused by things outside of grub. By the time you're booting the kernel, grub is pretty much done with it's job. One thing that's common in the 2.6.x kernel is not picking the correct CPU and chipset settings for your system. Double check that, recompile and reboot.

_sparky_

ZeroPhile · n00b Joined: 12 Mar 2004 Posts: 29

I have checked and rechecked 4 or 5 times. Recompliling each time. I'm not sure where to go from here.
_________________
If I was in my right mind. Would I still make left turns?

Kalki · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 10

Well, minor setback again...I couldn't fsck to clear up the superblock errors, nor did my X interface work very well, so I started over with a stage3 tarball, to save time...

See my INITRD post.

haoqide · n00b Joined: 09 Mar 2004 Posts: 19 Location: Nashville

I decided to post this as its own thread. Mods, please remove this post. I'm sorry!

ZeroPhile · n00b Joined: 12 Mar 2004 Posts: 29

After much deliberation and working with the kernel. I finally fugured out what the kernel panic was from. In all of the cases where I built my kernel. I did not put my FS Root partition type in. So it was not supported. Which is ReiserFS. Also, I realized that in my grub.conf I had a typo like so hd(0,0) which was suppose to be (hd0,0) .....

So it was not the 2.6.x kernel that was the problem. It was user error. The only problem I have really had with any of the kernels was 2.6.5-rl2 and that was due to the nvidia-kernel not being able to communicate with the kernel properly. From what I have read. It has something to do with the source code not matching up. Anyway, the only thing I can recommend when someone has this problem is to make sure they go through the menuconfig carefully. Selecting only what you need and modulizing the hardware that is not used on a consistent basis to improve performance. Plus you get a smaller kernel.

I hope that this post helps out anyone who comes in contact with this issue in the future. For I cannot say what the exact cause of the panic is except a bad configuration or compile. Have fun gentooing.

P4 2.4 533FSB
IC7
Nvidia GeForce4
1GB DDR RAM 3200
Philips saa7149 Capture Card
Realtek 8149 NIC
USR 56k Sportster
3x 80GB Seagate UATA HDD
2x 80GB Seagate SATA HDD
_________________
If I was in my right mind. Would I still make left turns?