this is a repeat post from the wrong area, appy-polly-loggies:

Hello! I'm having a problem with an upgrade to sarge from woody. I updated the sources-list (changed all the words "stable" in the urls to "testing") and from gnome 1.4, in a su terminal, did an apt-get dist-upgrade. then i did it again, just to make sure, and it installed some 235 other packages. Then i did a reboot so that i could start the new gnome (i thought).

after reboot, i only get a LI (instead of LILO 22.2) at the bootloader screen, and nothing happens after that. ok, so something's wrong with my lilo configuration. so i reboot with my debian (woody) boot floppy. All seems well and good, but then i get to the gdm login screen, and enter my name and pass. then i get the blank "x" screen (grey with the x in the middle), and then the screen flickers and puts me back at the login prompt.

ok, so fine, i do a ctrl-alt-F1 to get to a terminal, and do an apt-get -f install to search for missing dependencies, and, for some reason, none of the servers will resolve! i said "wtf?" and tried to ping "yahoo" and it tells me "unknown host." so i try to ping something local, my NIC, and no problem. then i did ifconfig, and, lo and behold, my pppoe connection IS up, with the correct settings....unless something happened to the netmask that i didn't see.....hrm.

do i perhaps have a problem with my resolv.conf? and why isn't gnome working right? and how do i fix lilo? I'm sure i can fix it myself with a little research, but it would be a lot easier if someone else had the same problem, or knew how to fix mine!

Greetings and thanks!

Steve

Dear Sir:
Perhaps you need to recompile your kernel before configuring LILO again.
woody = 2.2.22
sarge = 2.4.20
so there is quite a difference...maybe.

Here are some great instructions on how to do that (albeit in a generic slackware environment--it should be the same for debian).
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=49035
I wish you the best of luck and hope you enjoy sarge.

i had originally installed woody with the 2.4.18 kernel, actually... and because of my problems, i decided to get a fresh sarge install. it seems to work, but I'm having some problems with GNOME that I'd like to figure out myself, i think. Thanks for the input, though! I think you're right though. do you know if, when it upgrades from base-woody to sarge, does it upgrade the kernel as well? I don't think it does....i didn't have the same LILO problems this time around...perhaps upgrading my kernel will fix my GNOME 2.2. problem...I dunno, now I'm just rambling. Thanks for the help!

Please tell me how you got and installed Sarge? Is it from the unofficial download? IS the first CD bootable?

from what i understand the sarge install cd's are shaky at best. i installed woody, did an apt-get update, apt-get -u dist-upgrade, after changing my sources.list from "stable" to "testing"

What do you mean Sarge install CDs? I thought only the first was the installable CD? Why is it shaky?
Is it possible to upgrade from a upgrade CD?

I probably know less than you! I don't even know if it's possible to jigdo a sarge install. Anyone else have any ideas?

You can do a jigdo Sarge install. But can you upgrade a woody to Sarge with a single upgrade CD with success? Any who have done it? What was it like? Is Sarge "stable"?

I have only installed the base-system woody on cd. the rest of the install was over ftp. i upgraded, also over ftp and things worked, for the most part. Sarge is still in testing, and will be for a while, from my understanding. Not everything is going to work! (especially gnome2...grrr...)

Hi

Had same problem if I have read the 1. one right.
When you boot all there is on the screen is: LI
Known problem (search the net or ...)
But the solution anly works if you dualboot Linux and Windows.

Boot.ini
----------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
c:\BOOTSECT.LNX="Linux Debian"

BOOTSECT.LNX
-------------------
Boot Linux-bootdisk
/boot partition is e.g. hda2
dd if=<location of linux boot sector (/dev/hda2)> of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /floppy
cp bootsect.lnx /floppy

You have now dumped the first 512 bytes of boot partition into a file "bootsect.lnx". mounted a floppy. copy'ed file to floppy.
Now boot into windows and copy bootsect to c:/
Correct "boot.ini" - look above.

Good Luck

I currently use that method to boot my woody, and that's how I used it to get into Sarge, too. I think i had just done something wrong at that point. I'm gonna try another Sarge install from woody this weekend, maybe (after I backup this time, hehe) Thanks for this input, though, it might help someone else!

Steve
opopanax_linux on yahoo messenger

Yes yes yes.
I did that and then upgraded my kernel and got LI.
I am a Newbie, but when the kernel is upgraded, it seems like something in the boot partition is changed.
I had to dump the 512 bytes all over again and it worked

yep yep!

Hello.
I know this is a pretty old post. but I hope to receive some help.
I am a really newbie and I get the same problem that this thread is describing.
I just wanna know how to perform the solution John Newbie is giving away I can guess this is a command line instruction or so. But Right now I am in the "LI" state.
I tried to boot by debian CD1 installer but I got some sort of Kernel Panic message.
Is there Any way to create a boot floppy disk with the CDs?

Well, I hope someone replay this forum.

Thanks in advance.

Daniel