I'm attempting to load linux on an old Magitronix (P1/133). This laptop currently has Win98SE installed and a non-bootable CDROM. I downloaded and installed instluxCDROMUbuntu5_10, which loaded an image (vmlinuz)that I'm attempting to get loadlin to install.
I'm rebooting and, through a linux.bat file, loading the following line:
c:\loadlin c:\loadlin\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro

The loading stops with a kernel panic message that says:
VFS: Cannot open root device "hda1" or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

I'm at a loss here. Much of what I'm seeing in a search of this error relates to LILO or Grub, and I'm not linux savvy enough to make much sense of all this. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chuck

I'm not sure but if you have a 133 processor and how much memory 32 or 64 meg? How much free space do you have on your hd? Most of the later distros require at least 128 meg of mem and 6 gig of hd free space. There are some real small distros out there that will operate on your set but you'll have to do a search.

Thanks Larry.
Without booting it up, I believe I have 64mb of RAM, and a 7gb hard drive (not much free, but I plan to wipe it out anyway).
I've looked at many of the distros, and had planned to install something small (Damn Small Linux, for example). I'm only using the instlux applet because of the difficulty I'm having getting any linux on this laptop.
Ultimately, I would like to do a Linux From Scratch (LFS), but that requires some sort of linux distro installed to get started. Which brings me full circle to trying to get linux on this machine without booting from the cdrom. Ubuntu 5.10 is what instlux 4.0 requires (I guess).

Chuck

I'm not sure where I read an article listing the small distros but I was amazed at the amount of them and some are so small they will fit on a floppy which I would assume would be like compiling on yourself as I'm sure there aren't any "X" or drivers. You may try "Google".

I downloaded and installed mulinux (www.mulinux.com), a small footprint distro designed for DOS and Win9x systems. I was successful.
I'll now attempt to get where I was headed by building a Linux From Scratch system. Thanks for helping prod my brain cells, Larry.
I'm still curious though, why I was unable to mount /dev/hda1 using loadlin as before. The mulinux distro didn't have a problem doing so. Any guesses as to why?

Chuck

I'm not sure of the file system that hd1 has. I'm not familiar with mulinux and the file system they use but you mentioned it was designed for dos and win9X, so I presume it is fat 32 file system. You may want to rethink this distro if it is. I personally would choose one built on ext.3.

It is possibly the file system mulinux uses. You said it was designed for dos or Win9X which means it may be fat 32 file system instead of ext3. If so I would look for an ext3 file system distro as most of the linux files are ext3