Re: Kernel panic No init found
R. Earl Warren wrote:
> We are unable to now boot, having some months ago successfully
> installed GNU/Linux Woody Ver. 3.0r2. We have installed successfully
> a number of programs using the apt utilities, including networking,
> apache, mozilla, and samba. The last program we were working with was
> WordPerfect 8 for Linux in late February. Since then we have been
> unable to boot and instead get the error message "Kernel panic: No
> init found."
Perhaps you upgraded your kernel at some point to an initrd-flavored one?
Perhaps you converted one of your partitions to a newer format, such as
ext3 or ReiserFS, and don't have the appropriate support compiled into
your kernel?
If you can get booted up again (via floppy, CD, whatever), do an "ls -l
/" and look for something like the following on the root:
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Nov 30 07:28 initrd.img ->
> /boot/initrd.img-2.6.9-1-k7
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 Nov 13 10:57 vmlinuz ->
> boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-1-k7
The first line symlinks to the actual initrd.img file in /boot. You will
need to make sure this file exists and is accessible during the boot
process.
The second line symlinks to the actual kernel fil in /boot. You will
need to make sure this file exists and is accessible during the boot
process.
It's possible you don't have an initrd.img-based system; I'm kind of
thinking Woody did not be default, particularly with the 2.2 kernel.
It's possible you have the actual file(s) in root rather than symlinks;
that should be okay.
It's possible you're using grub instead of lilo, in which case the
situation is considerably different, but with Woody, I suspect you're
using lilo. Check your /etc/lilo.conf file to make sure it looks right;
post it here if you're unsure. Re-run lilo to reinstall the boot code.
You might want to provide us with more info, such as lilo vs grub; which
kernel version you're using, and what fails (below) about booting off
your rescure floppies/CDs. Being "unable to boot from our CDROM" is too
generic.
> Since then we have been working with our rescue floppy disks and
> with our CD disks [debian GNU/Linux i386 - 'Woody' 3.0r2], which we
> had purchased from www.AboutDebian.com. However, during this past
> month we have been unable to boot from our CDROM. The drive is
> connected by both the power & data cables and appears to operate
> properly when the unit is powered-up [the green light flashes].
Odd that you can't boot from CD. Do you have another machine from which
you can test booting from CD? Has perhaps the BIOS setup changed so that
the CD is not one of the first boot devices?
If the problem turns out to be your CD/floppies, you can download a
Knoppix/Kanotix/Mepis/etc CD to use as an emergency boot disk. Or
better, just re-download the Woody rescue/install floppies or CD from
www.debian.org.
Off-topic: if your machine is a dedicated server that needs high
uptimes, Woody is probably just what you want, but it sounds like it's
more of a workstation (mozilla, WordPerfect), in which case you might
consider upgrading to Testing (or even Unstable) in order to get newer
software (although WordPerfect requires some older libraries, so unless
you know how to keep those older libraries around, this may not be a
good idea for you).
--
Kent
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