I have just installed kernel 2.6.6-1.435 using apt and the system hangs up on booting. It gets to the stage "Checking root file system" and that's it - system freezes, no keyboard, only able to do a hard reset.

It works fine with the kernel from the installation discs 2.6.5-1.358, booting with grub. The system is a Windows XP dual boot system with XP on hda1 and FC2 on hdb6. Looking at /etc/grub.conf the entry for the new kernel is the same as the earlier one. The Checking root filesystem message on the earlier kernel works without a problem.

Is there a way to look at the system error messages on boot after crashing out? dmesg gives the info about the most recent boot sequence but nothing before that.

Bob

Hope you still preserve a 2.6.5 entry on your grub.Just boot with this one and then,on your GDM,go to System Settings->Server Settings->Services and uncheck the following :

kudzu
pcmcia (in case you don't have one)



Should be fine now.Let me know.

Thanks for replying and for the tip. It worked ... once!

I unchecked kudzu as you said, pmcia was already inchecked. Booting into 2.6.6-1.435 the first time was successful. The second time - no joy.

Your tip got me to looking through the system logs however. It's a bit frustrating 'cos there are only dmesg logs for a successful boot. If you crash out halfway then nothing.

I did notice a lot of acpi messages though. No obvious errors but there was a message to try "acpi=off" on the boot line for the kernel if there are problems. So that's what I did - and now it works everytime.

That's what is good about software - it is completely predictable.

Bob