...urge to kill rising...

T w i z t i D · n00b Joined: 24 Apr 2003 Posts: 50

Loved gentoo but had kernel panic problems last time i used it

however, recently decided to come back to it, since when it was running, it was by far my favorite. However, having just completed the install and finally finishing the emerge of x and kde, i had xf probs with getting my kb and mouse to configure. So i leave, come back from work, reboot, and i kernel panic again, and not even the gentoo cd will let me rebuild kernel (which worked last time) something about group descriptors being corruped. Now it looks like i have to reinstall everything, except i'm not even sure I want to because the motherf'ing kernel gets corrupted after any use on my Maxtor HDD. I thought it was a HDD error last time, but maxtor's utility found no errors, and I ran windows for 6 months error free on it. I've also used redhat, mandrake, suse, and win2k on this same HDD without any problems. I don't know why i'm posting this except to avoid causing damage in my apartment...

T w i z t i D · n00b Joined: 24 Apr 2003 Posts: 50

seriously, is there any way to save this install?

i really don't want to emerge all that stuff and recompile....

dice · Guru Joined: 21 Apr 2002 Posts: 577

Can you provide any details? Did you compile your own kernel or copy it from the install CD? What is the exact error message? How are you trying to re-compile your kernel?

BradB · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 1:45 am Post subject:

Do you overclock?

Brad
_________________
Microsoft - bringing the pain right into your home since 1982

T w i z t i D · n00b Joined: 24 Apr 2003 Posts: 50

no, i do not

going to try vanilla sources htis time

gnoodle · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2003 5:05 am Post subject:

you might be able to save the work you've done so far. if the gentoo boot/install cdrom isn't working, then you could use the "lnx-bbc" recovery cdrom or "knoppix" to get a working system up and running to recompile and repair.

the kernel panic you mentioned...back when i used suse, i remember them mentioning something about being sure not to compile stuff into the kernel and having initrd load up conflicting modules.

some other things include checking out the possibility that acpi needs to be turned off, as well as the possibility that hardware detection needs to be turned off.

and on a completely fringe level, you seem to have a desktop, but perhaps bespoke hardware from the manufacturer is causing problems. as an example, my vaio laptop's magicgate would cause lockups and reboots when switching between x windows and tty terminals. some kernel hacking of the usb storage source to properly identify the magicgate and a recompile solved the problem.

can you tell us what hardware you're using?
_________________
Gnoodle's Not Only an Open source Devoted Linux Enthusiast

Linux: the choice of a GNU generation

Jimbow · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2003 6:14 pm Post subject:

I had similar mind bending problems. I was able run XP, Redhat, and Gentoo on ext2 fine but had all sorts of trouble trying to install Gentoo on ReiserFS. Turned out it was a cooling problem with my laptop.

Gentoo and Reiser are both high performance which means that your computer spends more time working and less time loafing and hence creates more heat than less efficient systems.

The software you are trying to install is stable (unless you are usingn ~x86). It is very likely you have a hardware problem. Certainly test your ram with memtest86 and also make sure you are not overheating even if you aren't overclocking.
_________________
After Perl everything else is just assembly language.