Re: Installing Sarge
------------------------------------------------------------
>On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 11:15:52AM -0600, Dondalah wrote:
>> I have been using Potato and Woody with tremendous success.
>> Then I tried installing Sarge with disastrous results.
>> I expected Sarge to be easy to install, just like Potato
>> and Woody.
>>
>> First I tried installing a console system with defaults.
>> That didn't work. Then I tried installing as an expert.
>> I reached the same point in the install, and then it
>> failed.
>>
>> The most unusual part about my system is that it is
>> very old. My system bus is 33 MHz. I have an old
>> ISA motherboard. My disk controller is simple IDE,
>> ATAPI. Woody had no trouble with my hardware. I
>> didn't have to do anything special with it.
>>
>> Since the system doesn't boot, I can't copy any log
>> files to this message. I'm writing this on Slackware.
>>
>> Here are the steps of the install:
>>
>> Language: American English
>> Country: USA
>> Keyboard: USA standard.
>> Modules selected:
>> Linux floppy
>> ide-core
>> ide-generic
>> ide-disk
>> ide-cd
>> isofs
>> (pcmcia was not selected)
>> Scanning CD-ROM: CD-ROM detected
>> Low priority modules: none
>> Loading Debian installer components: no problem
>> Detect network hardware:
>> Deselected USB storage
>> Deselected PCMCIA
>> Selected ne2000 irq=5 io=0x300
>> Received error while running
>> modprobe -v ne irq=5 io=0x300 (This works in Slackware)
>> Configure the network: skipped this step
>> Confirmed to deselect USB storage
>> Detect hardware: no problem
>> Partition disks:
>> Manually edited the partition table.
>> Edited swap and ext2 partitions to force the format.
>> Used defaults for each.
>> Wrote changes to disk.
>> Formatted swap and root file systems.
>> Install base system:
>> Selected 2.4 kernel for i386
>> Installed GRUB.
>> Finish installation: no problem.
>> Storing language: no problem.
>> CD-ROM was ejected.
>> Removed the System Boot Manager floppy.
>> Received "Saving logs and rebooting"
>> Reboot froze after getting the following messages:
>> "Urandom start failed"
>> "Done"
>> "Recovering NVI editor sessions...done"
>>
>> Where do I go from here? I'd like to nurse the
>> Debian system up and running as my main system.
> Hmm, well I have sarge working on a 486, although it was installed using
> debian 2.1 and then upgraded with apt-get ever since (without any real
> problems ever). I don't believe in ever having to reinstall from
> scratch after starting to use Debian.
> NVI edit cleanup is at S70 in rcS.d, and after that comes screen
> cleanup, X11 stuff, sudo stuff, then it should go to rc2.d and continue
> there. First thing in rc2.d is usually syslog.
> The urandom start failed is odd looking. Anything more above that
> maybe?
> Len Sorensen
I didn't write any other notes before the urandom error, Len.
So I don't think there were any other errors prior to that,
except maybe for the ne2000 NIC not being found.
Tonight, I tried a different tactic with a different result.
This time I didn't install GRUB, in favor of using loadlin.
Loadlin has always been reliable for me on Woody. My
loadlin statment was:
loadlin vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 ro
This is the same statement that I used in Woody.
vmlinux is a copy of vmlinuz-2.4.27-2-386.
Here is the result. After the IP multicast message,
it said:
VFS: Cannot open root device "hda6" or 03:06
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:06
There are several things puzzling about this message.
It correctly referred to hda6, which is where the
root file system is. It told me to correct the "root="
message, but it looks correct.
I noticed that the syslog didn't mention anything
about the IDE hard disk, serial number, etc. During
the install, the debian-installer was saying that it
couldn't find the modules for IDE, but that it would
look for them later. Aren't all the IDE modules
available on the binary-1 disk? I thought the
debian-installer messages were normal, but maybe not?
I then booted Slackware on the same system and mounted
the Debian root file system, as follows:
mount -t ext2 -w /dev/hda6 /mnt
Slackware had no trouble mounting the Debian root file
system. Everything looked normal. So that means that
the kernel panic in Debian should not have occurred.
Why could Slackware mount the root file system, but not
Debian?
Is there any way I can go back to the Woody way of
installing, or is that impossible in Sarge? Is the
loadlin statement correct? Should all the IDE modules
have been loaded during the hardware detection phase?
Why would the debian-installer have allowed those IDE
messages to slide at an early stage in the installation?
Why did fdisk work smoothly? Did that mean that it was
using IDE correctly? If so, why did it fail later?
Why could debian-installer install all the packages from
the pool in the root file system and then loadlin say
it couldn't find it during the boot?
Thanks,
dondalah@ripco.com
Reply to: