Installer hangs on loading vmlinuz
 

Im trying to install mdk 9.1 on an old 133 mhz.

I had to make a boot floppy. I pressed F1 and typed in linux. Then it did:

boot:linux
Loading cdrom.rdz...........
Loading vmlinuz....
Boot Failed: please change disks and press a key to continue.


What could have caused this? Should I try a different boot option?


Thors

133mhz
32mb ram
2.0 gb hd
500mb hd

Ok well I started digging and came up with the option of installing from the hard drive. The problem is I only have 32mb of ram and the installer will not let it go with that little bit of ram.

Trying to partition the other hard drive (which is 1gb, not 500mb)
as a linux partition. Once I get this done, how can I get the image files copied onto the linux partition from windows... or even dos?? HELP! :)



Thors

it doesn't have to be on a linux partition. When you boot from the floppy, it will ask you where the iso image file is. Also, no need to partiton any of your drives. The mandrake installer can do that.

1GB is way small to get much running - i hope the installer doesn't abort by itself becasue it's too small. Make a small swap, maybe 200MB, and then when it comes to selecting packages, uncheck everything - i mean it. Then it will ask if you want a really minimal install or want at least X installed. Tell it to install X. This will give you a minimal install but still with a graphical interface that kind of looks like win98.

Once you have installed mdk, you can add programs manually. You could still install a browser, email client, a text editor and stuff.


good luck.

it doesn't have to be on a linux partition. When you boot from the floppy, it will ask you where the iso image file is.

1GB is way small to get much running. Make a small swap, maybe 200MB, and then when it comes to selecting packages, uncheck everything - i mean it. Then it will ask if you want a really minimal install or want at least X installed. Tell it to install X. This will give you a minimal install but still with a graphical interface that kind of looks like win98.

Once you have installed mdk, you can add programs manually. You could still install a browser, email client, a text editor and stuff.

Ok, I think I have narrowed it down to the amount of RAM in the system.

After trying the HD install, failing miserably I might add, I just deleted everything off my drives... fdisked all the partions off. So now Im sitting with 1 hard drive hda at 2gigs and 1 hard drive hdb 1gig. I loaded the cdrom image boot disk and presto! it started to install and got past the vmlinuz got all the way to the hard drive detection and it stopped, nothing no cursor or anything. I was doing this is text mode btw.

After this happened, I rebooted and tried the 'rescue' option for installation. A warning screen pops up and says something to the effect that with my low amount of ram (32mb) the installation might hang at any point. Then it starts to load the program into memory and it crashes with a 'received Signal 9 error'.

If this is related to the amount of RAM I have, is there any way I can do this? I thought linux was able to use low memory systems easily. Any suggestions?

Thanks for the reply Quatsch. Still digging my way through this.


Thors

9.1 requires 64MB of RAM for the install ram disk; I think 9.0 required 32MB. There are plenty of distros designed for older hardware with limited ram and disk space. You maight want to take a look at vector linux which can load on 16MB IIRC and installs on about 500MB:

http://www.ibiblio.org/vectorlinux/