Hello all!

I'm having a problem installing Debian on my machine. I downloaded several different debian testing .iso's for amd64 architecture. I burn them out (no I am not burning the .iso incorrectly, when I mount the cd on a linux system it shows all the files and directories). When I boot the CD however, my bios sees it as bootable, and tries to boot it, but I get this error:

It isn't a bash shell, as ls and cd has no effect, every imput I give it keeps returning the boot: prompt. What am I missing here? I have tried this with 2 different testing daily builds, and one unstable daily build, and the same error hits all 3 of them. The md5sums on all were perfect as well.

Peace,
JimBass

1. seeing all the directories is insufficient as a test - you need the check-sum too.

2. the boot: prompt is what you are familiar with from RH9 ... this is where you pass commands to the kernel. I've seen this before however - you need to tell the installer where the kernel image is.

I'll go look for how.

The md5sum was exactly on. I did use RH9 back in 2003 or so, but have moved on to more up to date distros since then. I have installed Debian on over 20 machines at home and work, and this is the first time I have encountered this boot prompt. Thanks in any case, and if you find more info, I'll be glad to try it out!

Peace,
JimBass

Hmmm - at the boot: prompt, all commands start with "linux"

for eg - you'll have heard about typing "linux rescue" - which is the way to "rescue" your distro in the event there is a major stuff up?

some folk have done

linux hda=<hda parameters>

but that dosn't ring a bell.
(man bootparam (7))

I've had a look through my FC4 notes about kernel parameters - and there is nothing there explicitly to tell the kernel where the kernel image is in installation.

Maybe it is caused by something else. What exactly is this machine, a laptop?

No, it is a desktop, an amd64. There has not been any installation that I want to keep, I am trying to format the SATA disks and reinstall debian. I have installed a few days ago with the testing release that has errors when trying to install any desktop enviornment. That is detailed in this post - http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=350115

Peace,
JimBass

Hi!

I ran into the same troubles when trying to install Debian on my Asus Laptop.
Did you find how to solve that issue?

I've tried the sarge netinstall CD, it kind of freezes right after the country selection.
I've tried the etch netinstall CD, it gives me the same error:
ISOLINUX 2.04 2003-04-16 Copyright (C) 1994-2003 H. Peter Anvin
Could not find kernel image: linux
boot: _

If anyone has successfully installed a Debian distribution on an ASUS laptop, I would really appreciate some help... (It's been 2 days that I'm trying).

Bye,
- Emmanuel

It was a problem with the disk images from Debian. They had some issues with the build when I downloaded it. I downloaded a few days later, and it was fine.

Peace,
JimBass

This can also happen if you do not pick the correct cd image. I mean if you try to boot with a cd made too run on a sparc for example.

I dit it. I tried to install debian on an amd64. Like an idiot, I picked the first thing I saw with a 64 in it. It was IA64 which never work because it is intended for Intel 64 bit processors. There is no official version yet for amd64.

But an unnofficial port can be found. See

amd64.debian.net
http://www.debian.org/ports/amd64/

Hello

Indeed, it was an image problem.
The install finally worked with the image at http://tinyplanet.ca/~lsorense/amd64/

Thanks!

- Emmanuel