On Monday 13 March 2006 23:17, Lachlan Patrick wrote: > With the installer I reformatted /dev/hda6 as format ext3, > then the installer automatically put the root/kernal 2.4.27 > files onto that partition (without asking me, which was fine > because that was what I wanted, but also annoying that it > just went ahead and did that). Well, the installer _has_ to install the kernel and initrd in /boot, so if you don't create a separate /boot partition it will indeed put them in the partition that holds root. > But: when loadlin launches that 2.4 kernel with root=/dev/hda6, > it starts booting but then gets to a page full of text and > prints "kernel panic, can't boot" and then just sits there. > I've exactly duplicated the loadlin command used to boot the > 2.2 kernel, except I changed the parameters to use the new > kernel file and root filesystem. The world has moved on and it seems you haven't (or at least, not yet). Both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels are modular and thus require an initrd in order to boot. It seems to me you forgot to tell loadlin about loading the initrd and it is a known issue that older versions of loadlin don't handle (larger) initrds. > The installer did want to write GRUB to the MBR of /dev/hda1 > but I wouldn't let it. Why not? The installer should recognize both your Windows installation and your current Linux installation (unless you've done very weird things to it, like removing the kernel from /boot). It should provide grub menu lines that allow you to boot Windows and your old linux install. Even if it does not, it's a hell of a lot easier to tell grub how to boot Windows than to tell Windows how to boot linux... We've put a lot of effort into dual-boot support. > Then it got upset and said I really should install GRUB somewhere, so I > relented and installed it on /dev/hda6. That's nonsense. You could just have used the <go back> button to exit to the menu and selected the "Don't use a bootloader" option instead. Try reading some of the available documentation like the Release Notes and the Installation Guide. If you have any further questions, please ask on the debian-user list. Good luck with your installation. Cheers, FJP
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