Lately I install Mandrake 9 The install all went quite OK. up until the install is finished and reboot I get this message "loading linuxEBDA too big"

However I can still boot the system from the bootfloppy created from the install. <--- which is not nice booting linux from floppy each time and what if I reinstall the linux <-- need to create a new boot floppy again

This is how my partition is set :
/boot 50MB hda1
/ 2GB hda5
/swap 109MB hda6
/home 2G hda7

using GRUB <--- I hear this bootloader can better handle oversize boot sector than lilo

my motherboard is really old can't even usie cdrom to boot so origionally I thought that my bios don;'t go up to 50 MB but I seen someone say all motherboard can do up to 3GB

ps. when I went to gnome's control panel 's boot section it says "I am using lilo" but I am sure I install GRUB at the install and when I change to GRUB the message says lilo again <--- I though it's default
and the following is what it says on the boot
linux(/boot/vmli <---- u know the thing ) *

I had install it for like 5 times now but I think I will do it again tonight just incase that I miss something

any help are welcome

thx in advance

Post your grub.conf file. You may have configured it incorrectly.

I couldn't find that file in the system
--------
su
updatedb
locate grub.conf
---------
but I found this :
/boot/grub/menu.lst
--------
timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
i18n (hd0,0)/grub/messages
keytable (hd0,0)/us-latin1.klt
altconfigfile (hd0,0)/grub/menu.once
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 devfs=mount
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 failsafe devfs=nomount
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd.img

title floppy
root (fd0)
chainloader +1
---------------
I think I can try change the :
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 devfs=mount
with kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 devfs=mount
and see what happen

not it doesn't work

Just have a test of those
menu.lst file
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 devfs=mount
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd.img

I am using one single Harddrive hda0 and the boot partition is in hda1 hence (hd0,0) is correct
I had try /boot/vmlinuz instead of /vmlinuz adn root is in hda5 all right everything seems to be in order.

The message says that linuxEBDA , what I think is that maybe the vmliux is bigger than 50MB?

Oh yesterday I was testing if the scrip is read by the system while it boots up , I found that I changed the timeout to 5 in both menu.lst and lilo.conf but when I reboot the timeout is still 10 second .... I think the link is broken or I am not config the right file to make those changes ..... should I try and do
fdisk /mbr
floppy boot to linux and install GRUB ?

I'm having the same LILO problem with a clean install of Slack 8. I found the following on the internet and plan on trying it tonight...


This is usually a result of upgrading the kernel rather than installing
it alongside the old one. Some links get screwed up in /boot and things
no longer match. (so much for the technical explanation ;-)

The easiest way out if you are not happy configuring things in the CLI
is to boot with the first install CD, choose expert mode and select
upgrade. Choose no new packages, and run through a quick install. This
won't delete any data and will get you a bootable system albeit with the
original kernel in place.

To install a new kernel, download the rpm, become root and use the:

rpm -ivh kernel-xyz-123.rpm

approach.

HTH
Brian