Re: Woody Install Error -- Not bootable

[Stephen Depooter <sbdep@myrealbox.com>]

On Wed, 2002-08-14 at 06:39, Eduard Bloch wrote:
> #include <hallo.h>
> * Stephen Depooter [Wed, Aug 14 2002, 12:27:05AM]:
> > I am just installing a Woody system (bf 2.4) on a 486 DX 33 tonight and
> ...
> > invalid compressed format (err=2)
> > 
> > System halted
> 
> IMHO such old boxes had lots of bugs in their LBA implementation (BIOS),
> so I sometimes ended up in using a DOS partition as /boot and loadlin.
> Unfortunately, you loadlin breaks on large 2.4.x kernels, so you would
> have to use 2.2.x. Or you can play with lilo's options (linear, compact,
> lba32, see lilo.conf manpage).
> 
> > This uses the installer's rescue disk kernel which boots fine, so I
> > don't know where the problem lies. I tried to get around it by using the
> > rescue disk to boot and install a different kernel image however, I
> > couldn't do that since the actual hard drive / is mounted as /target by
> > the installer.  So. I'm not sure where to go now, any ideas?
> 
> Sure you can install another kernel. Mount root as usual with installer
> (will be /target), then run kernel installation step. Go to the second
> console, chroot to /target, execute lilo, exit chroot and umount /target
> immediately (do NOT umount with the installer menu). Then you can
> reboot.
> 

Thanks for the reply.  
I ended up getting it working by booting using the installer's boot
disks and chrooting to /target and upgrading to lilo in testing and the
kernel-image-2.4.18 package.  I'm not sure if it worked because of the
slightly newer LILO or the initrd kernel package.  Lilo in woody is
1:22.2-3 while lilo in sarge is 1:22.2-5.  Anyways, it works now.

However doing that upgrade just before the make bootable step of the
boot-floppies installer seems to have screwed up the base-vonfig step
from the first boot.  It never asked me any of the questions through
debconf.  It seems to be using the noninteractive frontend. 
dpkg-reconfigure debconf has not helped in getting debconf to actually
give me the questions so if anyone can tell me where else to look to
recinfigure the debconf frontend and the priority it would be
appreciated.  

Thanks

PS: I am subscribed to this list, so you don't need to CC me. 

-- 
Stephen Depooter
<sbdep@myrealbox.com>
<sbdepoot@uwaterloo.ca>