SuSE 9.0 Kernel panic

smiler_jerg · 05-09-2004, 02:33 AM

Hi all,

I am a complete Linux newbie and this is my third attempt to install a distro. Here are the PC specs:
P4 3.0GHz with HT, 512MB RAM, Radeon 9800, 160GB HDD, etc.

I thought I'd try SuSE instead. What a dream YaST is! It was so much easier to use and install than Mandrake, and it worked with my on-board LAN card straight away - a VIA Rhine III which Debian (the very first distro I tried) refused to acknowledge.

In YaST I setup the following linux partitions at the end of the 160GB hard drive, in this order:
Swap: 243.1 MB - formatted SWAP
/: 4047.6 MB - formatted Journalised FS with YaST
/home: 1710.0 MB - formatted Journalise FS with YaST

I didn't want to be downloading all weekend so I selected the default system and removed documentation and office apps, so I could have a working window system to start with. I left it downloading over night and came back to a Windows XP screensaver (which surprised me).

It appears the SuSE install completed and rebooted, and GRUB was setup to boot Windows (I'd done this with YaST - it's a family PC and Linux might scare everyone else lol).

I rebooted the PC and entered SuSE, and I recieve a kernel panic! I don't know what to do!
Here are the last few lines of the boot:

Code:

Loading kernel/fs/jfs/jfs.o
insmod: error while loading shared libraries: lib.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.
mount: error while loading shared libraries: lib.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.
fsck: error while loading shared libraries: lib.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.
umount: error while loading shared libraries: lib.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.
kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fson 03:07

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

arrruken · 05-23-2004, 01:15 AM

It seems like for some reason, dumb ass SuSE installed your Linux install on a JFS filesystem and didnt include kernel level support for it.
You have two options, you can reinstall and use a common filesystem like ext2 or ext3.
Or:
You could boot to a live cd like Gentoo or Knoppix and recompile the kernel to include kernel level support for JFS(or whatever filesystem you use) and it will boot to it.
SuSE by default does everything in the kernel in a modular way, meaning it keeps the kernel small and loads every driver it needs, this is usually accomplished for a filesystem by using an initrd that has the drivers for the filesystem in question.
It would be easier and faster just to recompile, but you do have to know a little bit about what youre doing in case anything goes wrong.
If you choose to recompile just do a make menuconfig in the /usr/src/linux directory(assuming SuSE even installed the source, which it usually doesnt do

) and go to file systems-> and enable JFS support.
Good Luck.

smiler_jerg · 05-23-2004, 09:38 AM

Thanks for your help arrruken. I suspected this was the problem; I'd chosen JFS because I'd been told it was a good FS to use. It would seem SuSE isn't too friendly with it though (despite YaST having formatted the partition!).
I found a simple solution, I reinstalled using RieserFS. Unfortunately the install did not complete properly so I didn't know the root password! Plus, it was unreliable - SuSE did not like my USB keyboard and mouse.

I've solved all of these problems now - I've got Fedora Core 2 (rc3) and I couldn't be happier! Well, that's not true, I could be - there seem to be essential packages missing from Up2Date, like xorg-x11-libs, which I need to build Wine and Xvid :'(. I've been searching everwhere for this package but just can't seem to find it. Another package I need is libgtk2.0-dev which is only available as a Debian binary (from what I've seen). This also doesn't help.

Thanks again for your help arrruken

arrruken · 05-25-2004, 08:48 AM

No problem, sucks you had to give up though. Be warned about Fedora Core 2 though, it was reported on Slashdot that Fedora was causing problems with dual-booting with Windows. When I tried out Core 2 Test 2 a while ago my whole booting drive was just seen as "bad" with Partition Magic, this didnt happen immediately so keep an eye on it. Wierd problems. As far as the packages thing, although I dont mind SuSE or Fedora, they never seem to be even close to as good as Gentoo or Debian's updating processes. SuSE always wants to use my discs for some reason, even if I download a newer version of something, and RH/Fedora seems to get stuck in dependencies alot. Well good luck with yours.

BTW, have you got 3d Acceleration working in Fedora yet? I have a 9700 pro and I had to use vanilla sources for the ATI drivers to install right when I was trying out Fedora.