RH9 on HP Ze5300 problems...
 

I have been reading online about the correct way to get Redhat 9.0 working on my Hp Ze5300... however I havent been able to edit the grub.conf file... I am unable to edit the file using vi in order to disable the firewire controller and pcmcia device... any idea where i can find the commands to type and all... I was trying to get ahold of Knoppix and boot off of that and use a GUI based editor, however using 56k I have yet to download the 700MB ISO... any helpful hints???? Is it possible to edit the file using the rescue mode with the RH9 install discs???

* I forgot to mention that I was able to get everthing installed by typing [ nofirewire ] during install, I have been trying to boot into Interactive startup, but pressing "I" does nothing... no matter how many times I press it or hold it down. But during startup the system lock whenever kudzu or firewire is probed/started. Also I have been told that the system will hang on shutdown unless pcmcia is disabled. I havent gotten that far though....

"Is it possible to edit the file using the rescue mode with the RH9 install discs???"


Another possibility is LifeBoat:

http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

"Is it possible to edit the file using the rescue mode with the RH9 install discs???"

Possibly. You boot the Red Hat rescue, mount your / partition, and then run your editor from the / partition.

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Steve Stites

I had similar difficulties when putting Redhat 9 on my ze4220, I used emacs to edit the grub.conf file, it seems a lot easier to use than vi, and it's built in. if you only have the install disc (no boot disk), and are trying to get to a root prompt, you can type: linux rescue nousb nofirewire and it will load up for you. it will put you in a weird area though after you use the rescue mode, so just type chroot /mnt/sysimage and you will have a root prompt. after you edit the grub file in emacs, just type ctrl+x , ctrl+c and type y to save it.

edit: are you trying to get it to dual boot or do you only want linux on it? You'll have to use the process I described above either way, but theres a lot more to do if you want to dual boot.

yea! Got it going finally!
 

Got everything working with dual boot! However :( having to use an external modem, the drivers that I had found seem to not work for the aclink soft modem.. and the only 3rd party drivers for linux I've found arent free.... So I guess I will just be having to either use dial up with an external modem or have another cat 5 cable strung out to were im going... If anyone knows of a working 802.11x card that is linux driver friendly please post something... the linksys card I have now and the built in wifi are a joke with no drivers anywhere that I've found. Thanks again....

Hi, i had the same problem with start-up - no matter how many times i pressed "I" it didn't enter interactive startup.
Here's what helped me (found it in a document about installing redhat9.0 on ze5470us)

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After installation of the packages, the computer will reboot. If you are fast enough you can press the “I” key to enter the Interactive startup. Otherwise it will lockup and you will have to cycle power. Accept the default of y for everything EXCEPT kudzu, firewire and pcmcia. Kudzu will crash every startup and pcmcia will crash if you try to stop it, until ACPI is properly configured.



I was not able to hit it fast enough no mater what I tried, so at the grub boot loader screen I pressed “a” to modify the boot string prior to booting. Add nofirewire single to the end of the boot string. This will start the system and place you at a system prompt.



Edit the /etc/grub.conf :

Add nofirewire to the end of linux boot string

kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi nofirewire



Disable the services kudzu and pcmcia for now so you do not need to interact with the start everytime you reboot. To do this simply run:

chkconfig --level 3 kudzu off

Do the same thing for pcmcia and also for level 5.



Reboot your system and at this point you should be able to boot with out any user-actions.
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