Re: lowmem installation trouble
On 8 Oct 1998, Larry Fletcher wrote:
> On Oct 06 1998, equant@azstarnet.com wrote:
> > I am trying to install Debian on my 386 w/ 4Megs of RAM and
> > hercules video. Using the lowmem.bin image, here is what
> > happens...
>
> I've been trying the same thing. So far I have been able to install
> Debian Hamm from 1.44 disks using the "Installing Debian Linux 2.0
> For X86" instructions on the Debian site. But after the installation
> is finished the boot disk fails right after it says "No mail."
>
> The last two lines on boot-up read:
>
> Bash: Fork: Cannot allocate memory
> # (at this point the HD sounds like its writing and no commands
> are accepted)
>
> I've tried installing it three times with the same result. I assume
> its a memory problem and I can't add more RAM.
Hi,
I've done a lowmem install this weekend and experienced similar problems.
Fortunately, I was able to work my way through and finally succeeded.
There appears to be a bug in the installation sequence. What happens is
that in effect the swap partition doesn't get activated when the system is
first booted. Ouch! on a machine already low on memory!
I can't remember the exact order of what happens, but this is what I make
of it: After you've gone through the special lowmem steps to prepare a
minix filesystem, the regular installation proceeds. When it wants to
activate swap, it fails, presumably because the lowmem preparation
procedure already did this. So the attempt to activate swap fails and it
seems that this causes the swap entry in /etc/fstab never to get
effectuated.
To get things working, you have to edit /etc/fstab manually and add an
entry for the swap partition. This is best done while you are still
running the installation system from the bootfloppy (so you actually
have to edit /target/etc/fstab).
Here's what the line looks like on my system:
/dev/sda5 none swap sw 0 0
You'll have to change "sda5" into whatever your swap partition is.
If you wait until the installation sequence is booting from harddisk, the
system will hang halfway through booting because it has run out of memory.
If you boot the system in single user mode, the installation sequence
picks up before you get a shell and it becomes very messy. You can boot
in emergency mode, but then the root filesystem is mounted readonly and
you'll have to know how to remount it writable.
In short, try to get it right before rebooting the first time. You can
switch to a (limited) shell environment by pressing Alt-F2.
Commands to try are:
free
Shows you the amount of memory + swap in use. No available or used swap
means swap is not mounted.
vi /target/etc/fstab
To add the swap entry to that file. Without it, no swap is activated when
you boot off harddisk and the system will halt before you can login to fix
the cause of the problem. You should add the swap entry just before you
reboot.
And in case you need them (might be, I don't remember exactly what
happened / what I did manually) here's how to activate the swap:
mkswap /dev/hda1
swapon
This assumes that your swap partition is /dev/hda1 (if it isn't, you'll
break things if you still fill in hda1 ;-)
Cheers,
Joost
PS: It is probably good advice not to select and insert a gazillion
modules on a lowmem machine. Stick with the bare minimum and add them
to /etc/modules later on, when the installation is entirely finished.
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