Hi!

I am a complete newbie, I am trying to get Fedora core 2 rup and running, I have tried to install it twice, but it keeps displaying this message.

kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init = option to kernel

What does this mean, and is it fixable

(I am trying to boot to X btw)

Any help, greatly appreciated

KC

This error message whilst accurate is a bit misleading. The problem is not usually that the init= option is missing as it isn't usually necessary. The missing/incorrect option is usually root= which specifies the first filesystem to mount which contains the operating system's other files. What partition did you install / to in the installer? When lilo (or grub) loads you should be able to override the root option. In lilo when the options come up you press escape and then type the name of the linux option (press TAB to get a list of the options) and after the name type root=/dev/hda2 (assuming you installed linux on a second primary partition of the primary master IDE drive). Other likely possibilities are /dev/hda3, /dev/hda5, /dev/hda6 and possibly /dev/hdb1 or /dev/hdb2 if you have a second hard drive. I haven't used grub for a while so I can't give a detailed procedure however I believe that when the options list comes up you should press 'e' to edit the option (have linux selected first) and I think you then need to edit the kernel line although I could be wrong and looking for root= somewhere after pressing e is probably the best bet.

Once you have managed to boot you will need to edit either /etc/grub.conf or /boot/menu.lst (I can't remember which is the correct one for grub) or, if you use lilo then /etc/lilo.conf. If you use lilo then you must run /sbin/lilo after editing /etc/lilo.conf. This isn't required for grub.