kernel panic!! not sure what to do
 

hey, all. i just spent forever trying to update to the latest version of openoffice.org by using the rpm from mandrake update. i had to download a bunch of different dependencies, including some perl stuff, and when i installed them, it prompted me that certain packages had to be uninstalled. well, stupid me, i didn't write down what ones (i figured it would reinstall them for me--like i said, stupid me). anyway, long story short, now i have a ton of stuff that is no longer installed, and to make matters worse, i can't boot up into linux. when i try, it gives me a kernel panic error. i'm not sure exactly what to do, if i need to reinstall the kernel or if its something a lot simpler (i'm hoping for the a lot simpler thing).

well, any suggestions would be great. thanks a lot!

Using 1st install CD
 

Sorry to hear things loused up on you. This might be a tough one. Maybe you should try the rescue option on your first Mandrake CD.

1. Change the boot order in your computer's bios to boot the CD drive first.
2. Start the computer with the first Mandrake installation CD
3. When it comes to the 5 second delay, hit escape to see the other options. I think you type in "rescue" then hit enter to run the rescue attempt.
4. After it boots up in the single user mode, you can log into your system to effect a repair. Maybe try running lilo and see if it reinstalls the boot loader.

I'm not sure if you can install the missing files in single user mode, but I don't see why not. You will just have to mount the CD (mount /mnt/cdrom) and then install the missing rpm with with the rpm -i command.

A really drastic but less complex solution would be to reinstall the whole operating system. Just remember that all your user files are in the /home directory. If you are lucky, the /home directory will have its own partition. If not, you will lose all your files when reinstalling! That's why it's always a good idea to keep the /home directory in its own partition. By re-labeling it as the same partition when you are setting up your new system and not reformating it, all your user files will be intact after the new installation is complete.

Hope this helps,

Harry

does the kernel panic say a bit more than that? something can't find something?

This could really be messy. Are you sure you got the right rpms for the right version of mdk? If you got them from cooker, they are likely for the upcoming 9.2 and could have caused the trouble.

rescue cd
 

i had already tried the rescue cd, but i don't really have enough knowledge of command line stuff to be able to do anything for a problem like this through the console. i haven't tried to reinstall lilo or anything like that, but i'm not sure that's the problem, as when i boot up it gives me all the typical options that it used to. i'll have to try that out in a bit and then post back my results (i'm currently using windows to post this :( )

also, yeah, some of the perl rpms i got were from the cooker. i'm thinking that i won't ever replace something like perl again....

Mandrake's weakness
 

Whatever you do, don't blame yourself. The upgrading in Mandrake has never worked for me either. That's why I don't use it. I think some of the other distros have a better handle on this problem.

well, i just tried to reinstall lilo through the rescue cd. that went without a hitch, but i still can't boot into linux. the exact error i get is:

kernel panic: attempting to kill init!

then it just sits there and won't respond to anything, and i have to shut it down.

any other suggestions? i suppose that i can reinstall the system if i have to, but i'd prefer not to.....

thanks a lot so far for your help, Harry and Quatsch.

uuuhhh. Maybe you can get to single user mode or something like that by:
1. press ESC at the lilo menu
2. type
linux 1
or
linux bash
or
linux /bin/bash

(I'm not sure what the right syntax was for the last two; one of them should get you to a bash prompt if all goes well).

BTW, a good rule of thumb with mdk is NEVER install things from cooker unless you're absolutely sure it works, or you're working on a 'battleground' installation that you don't mind hosing completely. The OOo1.1 from openoffice.org works just fine on mdk.

gonna have to reinstall :(
 

well, i think that the best thing for me to do is reinstall. i'm going to try to do it without messing up my /home directory (i forget what partition it is, but i'll just check my fstab to figure that out).

if i go to reinstall and i'm not positive about how to do it without losing /home, i'll post my problems here.

thanks a lot, you guys. i really appreciate it. and i'll never install from cooker again!!!

too bad this couldn't have waited a little bit longer, for 9.2 to come out, then i could just update instead of reinstalling....

actually, upgrading from one version to another never worked very well in mdk and it probably won't work well with the move from 9.1 to 9.2. So you'd have to reinstall in any case... If you get into rescue mode, you could try if see if you can move stuff to your external drive just in case.

moving to external hdd
 

well, i tried to boot up the rescue cd and move files to my external hard drive, but i can't mount it. the rescue cd enabled me to mount all the partitions on my hard drive, but i can't mount anything external. since it mounts everything under /mnt, i tried both

mount /dev/sda1 /place i want it mounted

and

mount /mnt/dev/sda1 /place i want it mounted

in both cases it replied that the device was not a valid block device. any suggestions?

also, a very simple (and stupid) question--i can't seem to figure out the correct syntax for the 'cp' command. i tried to use it the same as 'mv', for instance:

cp /mnt/home /directory i want it copied to

but it didn't seem to work. if i remember correctly (forgot to copy it down), the message it gave me was "ommitted directory '/mnt/home'

thanks again everyone for your help.

cp -Rf {source dir} {target dir}

the R speciefies 'recursive' so that it copies directories, and f is for 'force' (no questions asked, if necessary overwrite anything in the target directory)

As for mounting the external drive. Try
modprobe usb-ohci (or ehci-hcd or usb-uhci)
modprobe usb-storage

The first line depends on which version of usb you're using. your sig says usb1.0; are you sure? isn't that mighty slow?

anyway, I think if you get the modules loaded, you can mount the drive. Also, if you run out of mountpoints, create a new directory in /mnt
mkdir {directoryname}

Also when you are redoing everything you may want to create a storage partition in case anything like that happens again.
nb: it is not wise to share out from your home dir.