Can't boot after install.

[chris_andrew]

Hi, all.

I've just got through installing on my unsupported Sparc Station 20. All seemed to go well.

When I rebooted, I got the boot prompt, then:

Cannot find /vmlinux (unknown ext2 error)

I tried to use another available boot image called _old_, but I got the same error.

Do I need to use my install CD as a rescue, and check the fs, somehow?

Many thanks,

Chris

(I'll try not to upset any moderators this time, by considering my posts carefully...thanks, guys...yo do a good job!)

[Keruskerfuerst]

Two reasons for this error:

1. wrong /boot/grub/menu.lst
2. false installation of grub itself

[chris_andrew]

The installed package was SILO, not grub, I believe.

Thanks,

Chris.

[Toady]

I remember there being some setup weirdness you had to account for if /boot was not on the same partition as /

somthing like
# silo -C /boot/silo.conf

I'm sure it WAS in the handbook - have a look at that and also make sure that your config does indeed specify the correct locations of the kernel and root partitions.

finally to fix it - you will need to boot from the gentoo CD again, then chroot to your install (remember to mount the /boot partition too) and fix it up.

Good luck
_________________
Toady

Gentoo Laptop
3.1.10-gentoo-r1, Intel Core 2 Duo (32bit)
Gnome on the desk, Intel in the box, on-board everything, but it all works!

[chris_andrew]

Cheers, Toady.

Chris.

[chiguire]

Chris, remember that there is a limit (< 2 gigabytes) on the size of the / partition for sparc systems with old obp versions.

If that is what is bothering you, then make a stage4 tarball of your disk (exluding /dev, /proc and whatever else you may not need; mount additional storage over nfs if required), repartition the disk accordingly and afterwards restore your stage4 onto the newly partitioned disk.

Although sparc is not officially supported anymore the old handbooks are still around, iirc the latest one that still mentioned this arch was the 2006.0 (cf. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/2006.0/handbook-sparc.xml).

Good luck.

[Toady]

there is a profile for 2006.1 for 32-bit spark hardware - what i don't know is at what point the software versions stop on that profile.
_________________
Toady

Gentoo Laptop
3.1.10-gentoo-r1, Intel Core 2 Duo (32bit)
Gnome on the desk, Intel in the box, on-board everything, but it all works!

[chiguire]

Indeed, the last version of the Gentoo Handbook to cover the sparc architecture is the 2006.1 edition, cf. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/2006.1/handbook-sparc.xml).