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I would like to suggest that Slackware® 12.1 users/newbies read the text files that are provided on your iso disk(s).
Read the ones that are relevant to your installation. The filename is self descriptive.
You will garnish a lot of information from the text files.
Of particular note (for myself) was the comment in the changes and hints text with respect to passing the option "hda=noprobe" to lilo at install and when booting after install. This will allow the system to properly configure your SATA harddrive as /dev/sda and not /dev/hda. The text specificly refers to IBM Thinkpads and DMA, but this also corrected the problem stated above with respect to my Dell, SATA, and the ICH7 chipset. Without this option, booting would result in a kernel panic - even after a successful install.
Quote:
If you notice extremely long wait times when formatting partitions in the
installer, and you're installing on a Thinkpad that has a SATA drive, it's
possible that the wrong driver is being used, which disables DMA on the drive
(and could happen on other machines). A bit more detail about it is here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Proble...stem_hard_disk
Try passing "hda=noprobe" to the kernel when booting the installer, and it
should use the correct libata driver.
If you find that you cannot stop the installer from configuring your SATA drive as /dev/hda, this option may get you running until you can configure a new kernel. In my case, removing IDE support from the kernel fixed things, but there may be other ways to correct this that are more appropriate for your situation.
Of particular note (for myself) was the comment in the changes and hints text with respect to passing the option "hda=noprobe" to lilo at install and when booting after install. This will allow the system to properly configure your SATA harddrive as /dev/sda and not /dev/hda. The text specificly refers to IBM Thinkpads and DMA, but this also corrected the problem stated above with respect to my Dell, SATA, and the ICH7 chipset. Without this option, booting would result in a kernel panic - even after a successful install.
If you find that you cannot stop the installer from configuring your SATA drive as /dev/hda, this option may get you running until you can configure a new kernel. In my case, removing IDE support from the kernel fixed things, but there may be other ways to correct this that are more appropriate for your situation.
I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to upgrade to 12.1 because of that, but thanks for the suggestion Franklin
harryhaller, that definitely shouldn't happen. Plus, with 12.1, you should be using 2.6.24.5-smp and not 2.6.21.5-smp. /etc/rc.d/rc.S should check to see if there exists a /etc/rc.d/rc.modules-$(uname -r) before using the /etc/rc.d/rc.modules symlink (and an rc.modules.local should override anything). I would check /etc/rc.d/rc.S and all of the /etc/rc.d/rc.modules* files to see what's going on. You obviously upgraded if 2.6.21.5-smp was present on the system. Did you properly merge your .new files etc.? /etc/rc.d/rc.modules-2.6.24.5-smp should be the file being used (it should say "Running /etc/rc.d/rc.modules-2.6.24.5-smp:" when it starts up, though this is not present in dmesg output or any other logs I have looked through).
Except I didn't do an upgrade but a clean install.
My kernel is indeed 2.6.24.5-smp but the @rc.modules symlink is pointed at rc.modules-2.6.21.5-smp!
It would be best that my previous post is ignored.
I fixed my mouse problem - but I don't know how.
Probably, since I have a pretty low tech PC, the difference between the the two rc.modules scripts didn't affect my machine. I'll have to correct that and try it out again.
Sorry about that - I wanted to help people installing - not confuse them.
Except I didn't do an upgrade but a clean install.
My kernel is indeed 2.6.24.5-smp but the @rc.modules symlink is pointed at rc.modules-2.6.21.5-smp!
In that case you definitely did not do a fresh install of Slackware 12.1 - unless you installed to a partition that was not wiped but still had a previous Slackware on it.
The kernel-modules package in Slackware 12.1 has this piece of code in the post-install script:
Code:
# If rc.modules is a real file, back it up:
if [ -r etc/rc.d/rc.modules -a ! -L etc/rc.d/rc.modules ]; then
cp -a etc/rc.d/rc.modules etc/rc.d/rc.modules.bak
fi
# Make rc.modules a symlink if it's not already, but do not replace
# an existing symlink. You'll have to decide to point at a new version
# of this script on your own...
if [ ! -L etc/rc.d/rc.modules ]; then
( cd etc/rc.d ; rm -rf rc.modules )
( cd etc/rc.d ; ln -sf rc.modules-2.6.24.5-smp rc.modules )
fi
So, if the rc.modules -> rc.modules-2.6.21.5-smp symlink already existed (i.e. if you install on top of an existing Slackware), the symlink will not be changed. If it did not yet exist (i.e. fresh install onto an empty/formatted partition) the proper symlink will be created.
In that case you definitely did not do a fresh install of Slackware 12.1 - unless you installed to a partition that was not wiped but still had a previous Slackware on it.
<bangs his head on the table>
Yes, now I remember - but it's worse than that.
I was installing 12.0. Since it was a clean install I had to go through all the files in /etc and compare them with the live ones on my previous installation (10.1).
I then saw a security alert for the kernel and that the kernel needed a patch. As there was talk of 12.1 being released soon, I checked to see if it was there and it was - I downloaded it some hours before the official announcement, making a dvd using isolinux.
I then tarballed the /etc I had changed, installed 12.1 (clean), and then restored the tarballed /etc.
Yes these are nice but I would like too see more from the group. I'm sure people have resolved some issues without realizing the help to others the solution would be.
I've not had anything major with the Slackware 12.1 install but I'm at the point to start breaking.
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How NOT to install.
