Re: debian won't boot: Inspiron 600m, Windows XP dualboot
On Wed, Apr 16, 2003 at 12:08:32AM +0200, mi wrote:
> John Greaton Wohlbier [Dienstag, 15. April 2003 00:59]:
> >| I have an inspiron 600m that I am trying to set up as a
> >| dual boot with debian and XP. For now let me just say
> >| that the debian boot process (from floppies) doesn't work
> >| (apm bios not found, kernel panic, etc.). Before explaining
> >| the problem in detail to this list or debian-boot
> >| I would like a way to generate a log file of the boot messages.
> Without any working kernel it's difficult to log at all.
> afaics you've got no filesystem support.
> Perhaps you can make a screenshot (yes, with a camera :-)
> You've got to get _something_ running, first.
> Though i got no problems until now.... into what direction would i look when
> an installer-kernel panics ?
> Weird BIOS settings. Wrong kernel choice. Too less RAM ( and no swap
> prepared). Corrupted or badly copied floppies. Exotic floppy drive.
> Can you boot a Knoppix ?
>
I haven't tried this myself, but the following should at least let you
capture the boot messages. You will need another computer with a
terminal emulator (or a serial terminal if you happen to have one lying
around :) ) and a custom kernel with support for console on serial ports
(I don't think any of the pre-compiled kernels on the standard Debian
distribution have this, but you could check). In the kernel source, the
file Documentation/serial-console.txt gives all the details, but the
boot parameter
console=ttyS0,9600 console=tty0
will let the console output go to both the first serial port (at 9600
baud) and the first virtual console (i.e. laptop screen).
As I said, I haven't actually been down this road, so I don't have any
mileage for comparison, but the map says you can get there from here. ;-)
As Steve Fosdick wrote in another reply, one of the other kernels may
work. Also, you can try apm=off as a boot param; there are many other
kernel parameters that might help disable probing for non-existent
features where the probing itself can cause problems. See
Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt.
> >| I have one hard drive with (presently) two partitions. The first
> >| partition is my Win XP and the partition I want to put debian
> >| on is presently formatted as FAT32 if it matters.
> I didn't hear of a Linux Rootfilesystem on fat32 yet....I think even if you
> can get around with the security / permissions, still /proc (and /var ?) may
> require extended features beyound fat32. And usually there's a swap partition.
> And /boot (-partition) format should be familiar to your bootloader.
> To be an the safe side, I would split the main partition into at last 2-3
> pieces (you can use the installer menu, or the commandline-tool cfdisk from
> the installer - should be also in Knoppix ):
> One ext2 dedicated to become the root-filesys ( you can grade it up to ext3
> later), one swap, and one fat32 for exchange with windows. If you don't
> install grub as bootloader, i suggest an additional /boot partition. That's
> a minimal configuration - there are arguments for more partitions. Perhaps
> you hold back some spare space to decide that later. There will be threads in
> probably most linux mail archives about various schemes.
>
> --
>
> micha.
>
How you arrange the partitions is a little bit personal taste and a lot
how you intend to use your Linux machine. A very basic setup for your
system would be to have your XP partition, a small (128M) swap
partition, and a Linux partition. You can indeed use a FAT32 formatted
partition as your Linux partition, using umsdos, but again, you may need
to compile your own kernel. See
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/system/Filesystems/umsdos. I would not do
this, however, unless you really wanted your Linux partition to be FAT.
...Marvin
Reply to: