[SOLVED] classic rookie mistake (LILO)

delta_waves · 05-29-2010, 01:00 PM

I made this same mistake installing 13.0 several months ago and fixed it back then by trying different things, but I still don't understand why.

So here's what I did this time to screw up with 13.1:

-Partitioned the hard drive to have /boot partition at sda1 of type ext2 (root partition is at sda3)
-manually configured LILO and chose to install bootloader to the MBR
-went into that 'add linux' option in the LILO menu and pointed it to sda1

When I try to boot slackware 13.1 I get a kernel panic. I'm sure the answer must be obvious but I don't find LILO very easy to understand. What did I do wrong and what should I do to fix this?

Richard Cranium · 05-29-2010, 01:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by delta_waves

I made this same mistake installing 13.0 several months ago and fixed it back then by trying different things, but I still don't understand why.

So here's what I did this time to screw up with 13.1:

-Partitioned the hard drive to have /boot partition at sda1 of type ext2 (root partition is at sda2)
-manually configured LILO and chose to install bootloader to the MBR
-went into that 'add linux' option in the LILO menu and told it that my boot partition is at sda1

When I try to boot slackware 13.1 I get a kernel panic. I'm sure the answer must be obvious but I don't find LILO very easy to understand. What did I do wrong and what should I do to fix this?

What type of kernel panic? Can't find certain modules?

delta_waves · 05-29-2010, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Cranium

What type of kernel panic? Can't find certain modules?

Here are the last few lines I get

Code:

VFS:  Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly on device 8:1.
devtmpfs: error mounting -2
Freeing unused kernel memory: 636k freed
Write protecting the kernel text: 9564k
Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 2448k
Warning: unable to open an initial console.
Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found.  Try passing init= option to kernel.
Pid: 1, comm: swapper Not tainted 2.6.33.4-smp #2
Call Trace:

One thing that I noticed right away is that it seems to be trying to mount my ext2 (/boot) partition as the root partition. The only partition formatted ext2 was the /boot partition at sda1 and it's only 32MB!

Richard Cranium · 05-29-2010, 01:38 PM

Do you remember the command line that you used to make your initrd?

GazL · 05-29-2010, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by delta_waves

So here's what I did this time to screw up with 13.1:

-Partitioned the hard drive to have /boot partition at sda1 of type ext2 (root partition is at sda3)
-manually configured LILO and chose to install bootloader to the MBR
-went into that 'add linux' option in the LILO menu and pointed it to sda1

When I try to boot slackware 13.1 I get a kernel panic. I'm sure the answer must be obvious but I don't find LILO very easy to understand. What did I do wrong and what should I do to fix this?

You should point it at the rootfs (sda3) not the /boot fs (sda1)

add "root=/dev/sda3" to your LILO prompt when you boot and you should be able to fix that by manually changing your /etc/lilo.conf and rerunning /sbin/lilo.

delta_waves · 05-29-2010, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GazL

You should point it at the rootfs (sda3) not the /boot fs (sda1)

add "root=/dev/sda3" to your LILO prompt when you boot and you should be able to fix that by manually changing your /etc/lilo.conf and rerunning /sbin/lilo.

Thanks, this fixed it

dodgefan · 06-07-2010, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GazL

You should point it at the rootfs (sda3) not the /boot fs (sda1)

add "root=/dev/sda3" to your LILO prompt when you boot and you should be able to fix that by manually changing your /etc/lilo.conf and rerunning /sbin/lilo.

**disregard my post, did a rebuild, but i know now to boot the install dvd and mount the file system, chroot and edit the files i need**

how do i add that line to lilo? when i hit tab at the lilo screen it drops me to a boot: line and if i add root=/dev/sda3 it says No such image Tab shows a list.

i did the same as the OP, sda1 is /boot and during the install i told lilo to add sda1 instead of sda3. its a new install so i could just re-do it but id like to fix it this way first