Hello everyone,
It's only been a couple of days since I formatted my toshiba laptop's hard drive (i was running fedora without significant problems) and installed slackware 13.1 32bit.

I did a network install because the dvd drive is not functioning properly.

everything installed fine with the hugesmp kernel, but I started not being able to boot the laptop every single time I wanted to (especially after a reboot but also after a power up).

my observations:

-the pc might freeze in the very first toshiba logo screen (where you are prompted to press F2 to enter BIOS)
-or it might freeze when I get the lilo boot loader (not even the count down to choose kernel starts) - but i CAN use the arrows and press 'enter' to choose to load a kernel manually
-or just after it loads the kernel and the bios checks
-or during boot after in loads ACPI thermal zone
-or a little later during boot when the dhcpcd if broadcasting for a dhcp lease.

the first 3 are freezes, the last 2 are resets.

especially if i need to reboot (or get the resets of the 2 last case), I will surely get stack in one of the first 3 cases afterwards!
side note: i have observed that rarely, after such a reset, if it actually gets stack in the toshiba logo, i might be able - pressing the poiwer buttonj repeatedly to actually overcome the 'freezing' there at which time i'll get to the lilo loader (the count down timer will not.. count down), but i can press 'enter' and I will finally get stack after loading the kernel and bios checks

So I have to powerdown the laptop and start all over again.

Sometimes the whole boot process will proceed smoothly. and i'll get to a login prompt, and when I do I can keep the laptop up and running for virtually ever. that is it doesn't seem to be slackware related...

Hwever the problems started after I installed slackware. I didn't have any problem with the fedora installation
and i wonder if it has something to do with the network boot....

additional note, with feodra i didn't have a problem restarting or shutting down the laptop. now if i restart, the pc will go through the process of shutting down, but it will never actually reboot - i'll have to do it manually..

any clue as to where I could start from are very very much appreciated as you can imagine

Hi,

My first suggestion would be to look at the ISO you installed from. Valid?

The 'md5sum' or 'hash' is very important to learn to use and too regularly get in the habit of utilizing it. You can get a sum checker for M$ if need be; 'md5sum.exe'.
For GNU/Linux the 'man md5sum' will get you all the information to perform the check. You can get the 'man command' from the 'cli' at anytime.

If you downloaded the CD/DVD ISO then be sure to check the md5sum for the original ISO. From the cli;
If the ISO md5 is OK then the install can be performed. You should do the check for any download that you might perform, even a LiveCD.

You did not state the media used for the install. Loop mounted, burnt media or a tree over the network?

Just a few more useful links; Slackware® Essentials
Slackware® Basics
Linux Documentation Project
Rute Tutorial & Exposition
Linux Command Guide
Bash Reference Manual
Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
Linux Newbie Admin Guide
LinuxSelfHelp
Getting Started with Linux

The above links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

Hello onebuck and thank you for attempting to dig into what seems a terrible mess...

md5 sums are the same

I downloaded the iso from a slackware mirror in greece. mounted as loop to a /mnt/isofs and i exported that through nfs, in order to access it from the network-boot-enabled laptop.

so overall the installation was run through nfs

Assuming your machine freezes before it even tries to run the system I suspect some hardware problem. Try to narrow it. My first advice is to run some live system – I recommend Slax because it’s based on Slackware. If Slax will fail try some other Linux live distribution, for example Kubuntu. You write your DVD doesn’t work properly. My second advice is to remove DVD drive and to try to boot the system (both Slackware and Slax). The problem can be caused also by BIOS. My third advice is to inspect BIOS and look for some updates on Toshiba home page.

that would be ideal... but the reason i started with a network-boot in the 1st place is that the DVD drive is not functioning properly ie. it does not read anything optical disk.
additionally, i can't boot from the USB so i'm tied to using the netboot again..
CAN I boot the liveCD of slax through the network?

I don’t know if it’s possible to boot Slax through the network but maybe you could borrow some CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive and attach it to your machine. Why you can’t boot from USB? There isn’t such interface port in your Toshiba laptop or it exists but doesn’t allow to boot the system? If so it must be very old laptop. Anyway, assuming my first advice isn’t relevant to your situation try my second and third advices first.

hm I can't believe I am actually asking this here but looking around in the kernel options I wonder if I did something as stupid as setting the wrong processor options in kernel config.


so I 've been looking around info about my processor which is :
the (arguably extended) kernel help under 386 option doesn't state what to do with pentium M processors.
and this wiki site is confusing
because in the section of Pentium M I don't see my cpu's frequency...

any ideas?

w1k0 I will look for a BIOS update...
but for better or worse the hugesmp kernel seems to be a bit more stable than my custom one....
it's possible I've done my own shit as well so i'm investigating that too

What happens if you disable network boot (PXE) in your BIOS? Have you disabled the PXE server that I assume was used to boot the installer on your laptop? Since it freezes at the BIOS screen sometimes, it makes me think that it is still trying to boot from the network...

actually the BIOS is too old fashioned...
It states that for network boot PXE is chosen, but its a read only value.
in boot priority I can alter the sequence of the boot devices (HDD, FDD (Even though there exist no floppy), LAN, CDROM) but not disable any of the options.
As for the PXE server , yes its fully offline (tftpd and nfs are switched off) and the dhcpd was written in such a way to only send the PXE file location if the client pc requests a lease with the name 'pxe client'

after looooong trials i disabled the acpi altogether for a custom kernel and now the pc loads fine...
however it doesn't sound like a particularly sane idea to be running without acpi at all...
I wonder if it has to do with some subsystem getting overheated..
that would explain the phenomenally random restarts...

well first of all : is it sane to run the kernel without acpi support?
and second: can I check the temperature of the subsystems from /proc/ or /sys/ ??

thank you