Slackware :: Use Alternate Kernel From USB Stick Boot Prompt?
May 14, 2010
After using slackpkg to update to -current on a new slack(32) install I was greeted with kernel panic "can't mount root fs" on reboot.
It was looking in the wrong place. I thought I answered yes and slackpkg would run lilo for me when it was done with the upgrade but perhaps I misunderstood.
I had my handy dandy USB boot stick so I set the bios and booted from USB. OK fine, I pointed to the correct location (hda1) and voila.
a 64bit kernel... The machine in question is a 2004 vintage celeron notebook
To my question: Is there a way I can point the loader to another kernel?
One last piece of the puzzle, the dvd drive is bad and I don't (yet) have a PXE server or even another linux box.
sure you've noticed while installing slackware 13 you are prompt to create a usb boot stick...
I was not able to create one in case my slackware won't boot after installing windows...
My question is how to create a usb boot stick or recovery boot stick so that a can su lilo back to its configuration, so that I can select windows or linux on loader prompt(lilo)...?
2nd and 3rd might be linux kernel problems but may help someone else so I included here.1st -- run level 4, /etc/rc.d/rc.4 and xdm -nodaemonJust installed 13.1 on an odd system, including building a new kernel.One thing I do is have the system boot to a command prompt and then run /etc/rc.d/rc.4 to start XBut I found that the rc.4 uses xdm -nodaemon flag and it was causing problems so I removed and all is pretty good. I still see some odd behavior with the virtual ttys sometimes.2nd -- when building a new kernel, I found I need the device-mapper butcouldn't tell if that was a linux kernel issue or something to do with lilo, I didn't want and don't need multiple disk devices like for LVM or MD so I didn't plan to have this enabled.3rd -- CONFIG_EXT4_USE_FOR_EXT23 When that kernel config option was selected and I have only an EXT4 filesystem, the filesystem was mounted as an EXT2, even though the kernel had no EXT2 feature. /etc/fstab specified EXT4 but the mount command showed EXT2. A silent problem that could leave an unpleasant surprise since EXT2 hos no journaling.4th -- I had to run lilo -C by hand in a virtual tty before finishing the install. This was what I had to do when installing 13.0 on different hardware. It seems that the lilo part of the install needs some sorting out.
I'm getting a netbook with no cd/dvd drive but it boots off of usb, so I've made a slackware 13 usb stick to start the install. I also have a usb hard drive I was going to copy the packages to. I'm wondering... should I boot with the usb install stick and then connect the usb hard drive afterwards?
I am trying to install Ubuntu on a nvidia board which, based on the forums I have perused, is a FAKERaid chipset. Originally I tried to install according to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto to no avail. I gave up and am resorting to breaking down my raid setup (thus losing my Windows XP installation) and using Linux's software raid (which seems to be the recommended method) with the Alternate CD install.
I went in to the bios and completely disabled my board's RAID function. I then followed the instructions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...n/SoftwareRAID , except it popped up with a window advising me "one or more serial ATA RAID configurations have been found. Do you wish to activate these RAID devices?" which that page didn't mention. I believe I selected "Yes". Setting up the partitions I made (from beginning of disk to end of disk) a RAID1 200MB /boot partition, a RAID0 / partition (90GB?), free space not set up in RAID (approx 20GB for each SATA drive to later install Windows on [if that's even possible]) & then the SWAP partition 2GB at the end of one of the disks (is it OK that this one wasn't in RAID?).
The installation completed, as far as I can tell, without a hitch. Except also of note: my network card doesn't work in the installer (gives an error message about unable to configure dhcp) so i'm not connected to the internet. Then I restart and the following appears: grub loading: error: biosdisk read error. Followed by what appears to be the Ubuntu loading splash (just a small white shape in the middle of the screen), and then:
I have downloaded the i386-DVD.iso image and have burned it on a DVD using Nero Express 6, when it boots from the DVD, it give me an error message "Could not find kernel image: Linux" and the boot: prompt after that. I have burned another DVD using Infra Recorder with minimum write speed but with the same problem. I have Ubuntu already installed on the computer.
I installed a fresh copy of Slackware 13.1 (stable) on one of my media servers and I am experiencing something strange.... When I power up the machine, I see the kernel booting, no errors, until it gets to the point where it says:
And then randomly freeze there.... Well the machine is not totally frozen because the cursor still blinks. But it will never continue... Like I said, this happens on a random basis... After a reset, it might go through or simply stall at the same spot.
I remember after installing Slack 13.1, I rebooted the machine but forgot to remove the DVD from the player, so the install routine started up, and froze at the same point when it was loading the kernel for the setup programs...
My mobo is a MSI k9N platinum.
I never had this problem before.... (well I never used 13.1 before). Since I got this machine, I used slack 12.2 and slack 13-current with success.
This problem makes the machine extremely unreliable because I intent to use it as a backup and media server, so chances I will WOL the machine and use it remotely... if that happens.
I updated my kernel in slackware current but can't install lilo, when i was with my old kernel it gave an error about not finding the sda drives (they were named hda before the upgrade).I booted into the slackware 13.0 dvd and modified fstab and lilo.conf replacing hda with sda but lilo still gives an error of not finding sda drives.How can i install lilo so i can boot into my sistem??
I have a Centos 5.5 system with 2* 250 gig sata physical drives, sda and sdb. Each drive has a linux raid boot partition and a Linux raid LVM partition. Both pairs of partitions are set up with raid 1 mirroring. I want to add more data capacity - and I propose to add a second pair of physical drives - this time 1.5 terabyte drives presumably sdc and sdd. I assume I can just plug in the new hardware - reboot the system and set up the new partitions, raid arrays and LVMs on the live system. My first question:
1) Is there any danger - that adding these drives to arbitrary sata ports on the motherboard will cause the re-enumeration of the "sdx" series in such a way that the system will get confused about where to find the existing raid components and/or the boot or root file-systems? If anyone can point me to a tutorial on how the enumeration of the "sdx" sequence works and how the system finds the raid arrays and root file-system at boot time
2) I intend to use the majority of the new raid array as an LVM "Data Volume" to isolate "data" from "system" files for backup and maintenance purposes. Is there any merit in creating "alternate" boot partitions and "alternate" root file-systems on the new drives so that the system can be backed up there periodically? The intent here is to boot from the newer partition in the event of a corruption or other failure of the current boot or root file-system. If this is a good idea - how would the system know where to find the root file-system if the original one gets corrupted. i.e. At boot time - how does the system know what root file-system to use and where to find it?
3) If I create new LVM /raid partitions on the new drives - should the new LVM be part of the same "volgroup" - or would it be better to make it a separate "volgroup"? What are the issues to consider in making that decision?
For several months, I've had a couple problems with my X display. The first is an occasional seg fault that cascades thru all applications, leaving me with nothing, and requiring a reboot.The second is that all mozilla derived browsers -- firefox, epiphany, icecat -- crash very frequently. Sometimes this requires a reboot or restart of the display.Since I am not seeing complaints from other people about this for my distro (f14), but it did not happen on the same hardware with my previous install (f10), I'm putting it down to some combination of software.
My first suspect is the ati catalyst video driver. I don't use GL much, so I actually don't need the proprietary driver installed all the time. If it is the problem, I'd like to leave it installed for when I need it, but mostly use the kernel's native radeon driver.I had hoped this would be as simple as removing the fglrx driver and loading radeon, but that doesn't work -- when I start X again, the kernel loads fglrx. I changed the xorg conf to use the "ati" (xorg) driver; this leads to "no signal" to the monitor and I have to reboot.
While I trying to install Linux cable driver following error occurred. "checking for linux kernel source... not found configure: error: please install the kernel source or specify alternate location"
I tried by "yum install kernel-devel" and headers but still problem continues. How to set the path or where it installed in default. CentOs 5.5 uname -r :2.6.18-194.el5
I installed Slackware 13.37 today, fresh install. I added the generic 2.6.37.6 kernel to lilo, rebooted, and ran with it. I transferred some stuff to my hard drive and installed a few things, reboot again and now I can't boot up with my kernel of choice (but I can with the huge kernel). It stops during the boot process and says
Code: [1.785238] No filesystem could mount root, tried: romfs [1.785342] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,1) [1.785417] Pid: 1, comm: swapper Not tainted 2.6.37.6 #2
After that is a line that says Call Trace and several lines after that with stuff that makes no sense to me and that I don't feel like typing out, but will if it is relevant.
Is it possible to upgrade a Slackware installation from a freshly d-loaded DVD? How would one go about this? Would the procedures in the Upgrade.txt work? I would assume they would need to be modified a bit, though, since I'm only upgrading the same version of Slackware. I'm not going from say 13.1 to 13.37. I just want to update a 13.37 current that I installed about three weeks ago to the now final release 13.37. If I could get my silly Trendnet TEW 423IP wireless PCI card to work in Slack, I could upgrade the normal way with Slackpkg.
My Slackware boots using the huge kernel. I am not using LILO; I am using GRUB from the extras directory on the DVD. I followed the tutorial @ [URL] up to the point where it discusses modifying LILO. My /boot/grub/menu.lst reads, in part:
# Linux bootable partition config begins title Slackware Linux on (/dev/sda7) root (hd0,6) kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda7 ro vga=normal # Linux bootable partition config ends
This boots the huge kernel. What changes must I make to the above menu.lst entry to boot using the generic kernel?
I tried to compile a 2.6.33 kernel following Alien's guide.
I pretty much used the default values for every (NEW) option avaiable. I used "make localmodconfig" on my current config (zcat /proc/config.gz) and then tried to use "make menuconfig" to check if I could change anything. I didn't understand most of the options, so I skipped it. Then I used "make bzImage modules" and "make modules_install", copied the files mentioned on the wiki and run lilo.
But when I try to boot using my custom kernel, it gives an error like "Cannot remount read-only filesystem as read-write! This can cause serious problems."
If I try to continue the boot, it hangs when trying to launch the syslog script...
The new kernel entry on lilo.conf is:
Code: image = /boot/vmlinuz-custom-2.6.33 root = /dev/sda4 label = newkernel read-only just like the default kernel entry.
By the way, one thing I changed is the kernel compression format, which I set LZMA. But it didn't seem to be the problem, since it at least started...
I am trying to install Ubuntu 10.10 from a USB flash memory stick. It works fine until around 95%, where I get the following warning/error:
[Code]....
I click OK and the installer seems to finish nicely, except the terminal throws several errors along these lines (see photo):
[Code]....
I tried also with 10.04 LTS, the difference being that the install warning appears two or three times instead of once. Some results from googling (Ubuntu Forums, Ubiquity bug) suggest unchecking the initial update options. I am going to try this but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the boot loader right (there seemed to be problems with this).
I have been playing with chroot to build packages.I am wondering about the limits or caveats of using chroot to mix operating systems. For example, what should I beware if I use 12.2 and chroot a 13.1 system? Or if I use 13.1 and chroot a 12.2 system? After all, the chroot does inherit some attributes of the parent system.There is the noticeable difference of kernel versions. For that one reason I'm thinking that mixing system versions might be frustrating.
My focus is building packages, not running an alternate operating system or a service such as ssh. I realize that building packages as root in a chroot potentially compromises security but that is not my focus.I am aware that a chroot is not a true virtual system.A virtual machine is an option, but in this thread I'm curious about the limitations of chroot. I find building packages in my virtual machines much slower than actual hardware, even with a dual core. Hence my interest in chroot
I recently did a fresh install of current and once I had it up and running I compiled a fresh 2.6.33 kernel using my old config file, but now I get this warning durning boot, specifically during module loading WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/sound, it will be ignored in a future release. This doesn't seem to be causing any problems but I am curious to know what the message meams? I checked /etc/modprobe but everything looks normal.
The new 2.6.35.7 kernel fails to boot on my Lenovo laptop. I had previously compiled a 2.6.35 kernel with a couple of different .config files and never had it boot properly. The failure occurs very quickly and I am including the final screenshot in case that helps.
After the bunch of updates with current, my custom kernel (2.6.33) can't boot.
The error is: /sbin/e2fsck: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/sda6
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
The /dev/sda6 is ext4 and is ok since it can boot with official huge smp kernel 2.6.33.
My custom kernel can boot before this bunch of updates in current. What i missing in kernel?
I switched today to slackware-current on one of my desktops to play with it and ran directly into a problem.
Since ages my lilo.conf has two entries for slackware. One for runlevel 3 and one for runlevel 4.
Code:
Since the upgrade this is no more possible because I get a kernel panic as soon as udevadm trigger is called. The stack says something about an unknown boot option. Because that i removed the append lines from my lilo.conf and i was able to boot the system. The crash happens when udev is called from within the ramdisk and afterwards. I tried both.
My question is now. Is this a bug in udev or expected? I have this setup since at least 5 years and had never problems with that. What do I have to do to be able to select the runlevel at boot time?
I have two almost identical computers -- identical model & type designator; minor difference in hardware details. Both boxes have an installed and running Ubuntu -- one Lucid (v10.04 LTS) and one Jaunty (v9.04). Consider box-A with drive-A and box-B with drive-B. Q1: If I swap drive-A to box-B and drive-B to box-A, is system startup clever enough to work around any minor hardware differences?
I know! "It depends..."
One minor difference is the wifi card. Both are Intel -- one is the 3945 while the other is the 4965. Another difference is partition sizes and mount points. Another difference is RAM size -- 3GB vs. 4GB. Another difference is the specific brand and specs for DVD=RW. I could go on, but the differences seem minor if not trivial.
I have a reason for such a swap that makes sense to me. I simply want to make sure that the system startup will figure out what is different. Q2: Is there some command or utility to run after I make the swap that will add-remove packages and make the install on drive-A better matched to box-B, etc?
Today I decided to replace my 9.04 install with 10.04. (I did this on a separate hard disk.) As I am a big fan of LVM I used the 'Alternate' install CD. Everything installed fine.
However, upon booting I observed two things: firstly there was no grub menu. No countdown timer, no menu. Just a flickering cursor. After 15 seconds or so I got a message telling me that:
Code: /dev/mapper/bromine-root (My root partition.) does not exist and that it had given up waiting. Finding this kind of strange I tried the alpha of 10.10 --- same again. Hence I have two questions: firstly, where did the nice grub menu go; secondly, what is wrong with LVM and grub these days? At the initframfs prompt I am thrown to there are some LVM utilities and they appear to show my volumes.
Switching back to my old pair of hard disks and everything works as expected (i.e, the hardware is fine and supported by Linux.)
How can one create an alternate disk or boot path on a ubuntu server? I have a new server running 9.10 and have a full backup of an old server which had all the configuration and installed softwares, etc. Instead of trying to reinstall everything and configure it the way it was, I was thinking of adding another disk to the server, mount it and then hopefully be able to boot it from there. I don't have any LVM or mirroring setup but was hoping if I can specify a secondary boot path when the server boots up, if it fails I should be able to go back to the current one.
I used a USB stick to make a bootable Slackware 13.0 USB.. uh, stick and now I need to use it to write stuff on -- can't seem to figure out how to format the thing so I can that
I'm trying to change the Xfce Terminal Emulator prompt from bash-4.1$ to something like what kconsole has. If i issue a /bin/bash -l in the terminal, then I get the prompt and the colors that I want, but I'd like this to automagically happen when I click the Terminal icon in the Xfce panel.This is for Slackware 13.37 (32bit) and Terminal 0.4.6
