issue with Slackware 14.1 install
 

Hi --

After running into some issues with improperly-removed multilib, I decided to start over and install 14.1 onto my laptop from the ground up. I have a subscription, so the DVD is right here.

However, for the first time (that I can recall at least) since starting with Slackware 4.0 in 1999, I'm having trouble installing Slackware! :(

(All that follows may be discussed elsewhere and I missed it or did not Google for long enough. If so, please point me to a relevant discussion.)

First off, I'm no longer seeing the familiar ISOLINUX screen upon booting the DVD. Instead, I get a WELCOME TO GRUB message. This pauses for a few seconds and then I get a few booting choices. I've been attempting to use 'Slackware 14.1 huge.s kernel'.

The first couple of times I chose this and hit return, I got a message that read

then

... but the boot would then continue (not waiting for a keypress) until the process ended in a kernel panic.

NOW, however (after those first abortive couple of attempts) I see an additional line:

and then waits for me to "Press any key to continue." When I do so, I get taken back to the main Grub menu.

SUM: I'm very confused. I want simply to get to setup, repartition my hard drive (I'd like to install OpenBSD next door to Slackware) and install Slackware 14.1, and restore my old /home directory from a tarball I made.

What do I need to do? I hate sounding so clueless ... but the fact that the installer did one thing the first couple of times I tried it and then changed is a little freaky to me.

Any advice would be appreciated. For what it is worth this is a ZaReason laptop with an Intel i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50GHz.

Thanks,

Glenn

I could be way wrong here, but I am not buying the Grub part. A Slackware-14.1 DVD that boots with Grub?

Is it possible that you are not really booting from the DVD, but booting from Grub on the hard disk (possibly left over from a current or previous Linux install)? And then Grub sees the DVD and offers you that as an option (but that isn't the same as booting from the DVD)?

Thanks for the reply.

Actually, I don't think you are necessarily way off here.

I've had an issue -- more of an annoyance -- that when I had my external drive plugged into this laptop on boot, a Grub menu would pop up and then error out, not being able to find an OS. I haven't pursued fixing this just because I've been crazy busy and as long as I remembered to plug the hard drive in AFTER boot I was okay.

If this IS the problem, I'm wondering where I should look for it, how I should get rid of it or get around it ...

/G

I just found this thread:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-a-mbr-300256/

... could this help?

More confusion ...

I re-installed LILO to the MBR. When I rebooted, I got a kernel panic upon bootup. So I inserted the DVD and rebooted ... and when I got to the (spurious?) Grub menu, chose the third option, to boot a detected OS. I booted into my existing system.

At that point I thought I would try installing LILO to the superblock ... but when I run liloconfig, the dialog box says "UEFI FIRMWARE DETECTED" ... then, when I hit return, ostensibly to install elilo, the dialog returns me to the command line without doing anything. I thought there must be an 'eliloconfig', so tried firing that, and got

I have no idea what's going on (to state the obvious), add am flailing.

You need to find a way to nuke your MBR. I prefer
I let that simmer for maybe 15 seconds and viola(!). Fresh hard drive.
I agree with ljb643 --you're not booting from the DVD.
WARNING: the above command will destroy your partition table too. Files gone.

Thanks. I'm going to try this. I have backups of everything from /home/<me>. Need to start from a clean slate.

UPDATE: well, color me stumped. I issued the 'dd' command described and had what appeared to be a fresh HD ... rebooted with the 14.1 DVD in the drive and ... up pops Grub. Only now I had no existing system to fall back on.

So I tried rebooting with the 14.0 DVD ... and up popped the old, familiar ISOLINUX screen.

I guess I will install 14.0 and then upgrade.

So ... yeah. :scratch:

/G

If Slackware 14.1 DVD installer detects an UEFI firmware it uses GRUB to boot, else ISOLINUX, as ISOLINUX 4.05 is not able of EFI booting. Simple as that.

So, I'd check if you can not only see ISOLINUX screen but actually boot with it. If that is the case, then maybe you haven't actually an EFI firmware, that could mean a wrong EFI firmware detection.

But in that case, maybe there is no need to install Slackware 14.0 then upgrade to 14.1.

Try this: just use Slackware 14.0 installer and at time of choosing the SOURCE in 'setup' menu, replace the 14.0 DVD with the 14.1 DVD and during configuration choose to install lilo instead of elilo when asked.

FYI, Slackware 14.1 USB installer uses ELILO to boot in case of EFI firmware.

For multi-boot EFI, some recommend using rEFInd.

...end of days :weeps internally:

Would you prefer that folks who (intentionally or not) have bought a machine shipped with Windows 8 be unable to install Slackware on it?

It was a joke.
But I do think it's unfortunate that using GRUB is the only way, as I consider GRUB a mess, and
in no way conforming to the KISS principle.

Well, not strictly the only way as there's also elilo, and syslinux 6.02 is released with EFI booting ability (being optimistic, I forecast it'll be stable enough to be included in Slackware in one year or so, as the project is very active and has just won a new committer, Gene Cumm, recently). Anyhow, I trust Pat's ability to make acceptable compromises and choose the less unsatisfying solution when needed. If not, Slackware wouldn't have lasted more than 20 years ;)

Also:

1. Booting an OS on all available machines is anything but simple, when you consider that you have to cope with a big variety of BIOS and firmwares, some of them buggy one way or another.
2. Current EFI specification (version 2.4 at time of writing) is 2,226 pages long and change roughly twice a year. It's no wonder to find slight discrepancies in its implementation and interpretation by upstream (hardware manufacturers and software vendors) from times to times.

You can try to switch your mobo to Legacy-BIOS booting mode to see ISOLINUX boot sector. If your hardware support this booting mode there is a chance that LILO can be used to boot the system.