Until recently, I have been using Mandrake 9.1 installed on hdb2. A few days ago, I installed SuSE 8.2 on hdb5. SuSE runs fine, but my Mandrake has fallen over. At first I thought this was caused by the boot loader, however, the problem seems to be more serious.

To fix Mandrake, I have tried "upgrading" Mandrake using the CD, and when this did not fix it, I did a full install.

The boot loader starts Mandrake, and everything appears to be going ok until it gets to the "Press "I" to enter interactive mode". I am not able to press "I" quick enough (and would not know what to do!). Then it reports errors like:

/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line *** : ********** Permission denied

there is a continuous string of different line number and their references

Using SuSE, I am able look at hdb2 - the rc.sysinit file is present in the /etc/rc.d directory.

Can someone help me resolve this problem??

When you installed SuSE, what did you do about your boot loader(s) and kernel(s)?

This is likely the 'ROOT' () of your problem.

Cool

Thanks for quick response.

I didn't do anything. When I installed SuSe, I let SuSE write a new boot loaded.

This worked ok for SuSE, but not Mandrake. When I re-installed Mandrake, I let it re-write the lilo boot loader (you don't have an option). This new boot loader works ok for SuSE, but gives the erreor messages referred to in my first posting.

Using SuSE, I have since modified the Mandrake section of lilo to look like this:

image = /boot/vmlinux
label = Mandrake
root = /dev/hdb2
initrd = /boot/initrd
append = "hdd=ide - scsi"
vga = 788

I also copied (on hdb2) "/boot/initrd.img" to "/boot/initrd" (because SuSE lilo did not accept the *.img).

Ok, that is **likely** the problem

Whichever distro's boot loader you end up using, you'll need to copy the kernel for ALL your distro's to that distro's /boot directory, and setup LILO to boot those kernels for those distros. You'll also want to make sure you setup the root=/dev/hdx option correctly.

And FYI:
You do have an option for the boot loader in the Mandrake install if you choose Expert

Cool

To answer your last question first, "Yes" in the full install mode (if I remeber correctly), but I don't think you get a chance in the upgrade mode.

The "root=/dev/hdx" line is hdb5 for SuSE and hdb2 for Mandrake.

Believe me, I am not competent to debate your second paragraph! Yet I'm puzzled - if the new distro needs a copy of the other's kernel for for the "new" lilo to be able to boot the "old" distro, why did SuSE boot ok after the Mandrake install with the Mandrake lilo boot loader(?). (I don't really need an answer to this).

However, I'm prepared to do this if it is necessary. What do I do? Do I copy the vmlinux files from the Mandrake /boot directory into the SuSE /boot dirctory with a unique name, and use this name in the Mandrake section of lilo? Will this find the Madrake system on hdb2?

Cheers

Yes.

Ok, for the long answer:

Mount up Mandrake:
mkdir /Mandy
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb2 /Mandy
cp /Mandy/boot/vmlinuz /boot/vmlinuz-Mandrake
Of course you'll likely get an error because IIRC vmlinuz is only a symlink to the actual kernel that is something like:
vmlinuz-2.4.19-16mdk


Then, adjust /etc/lilo.conf accordingly, save, rerun lilo to save the changes.

This does assume you are going to be using SuSE's lilo, you can do whatever you'd like though, they should both work just as well...

As for "Why did it work?" that's really a good question, but because of quite a few variables, is too hard to even attempt to tackle. Maybe the kernels were close enough that one distro could use the others, maybe the overwriting of the MBR with the new lilo setup the new distro to boot correctly, maybe the drive pickup didn't work out correctly and it was booting the old one with the new one's initrd...

A lot of possibilities.

Oh, and to touch on an error from before:
initrd.img
It really shouldn't matter what file extensions you use, you could even rename it to:
chucksDiner
And it should still work. The problem was more likely that it was pointing to a non-existent file or a bad symlink (or something else..). Lilo should complain, and when it does, you should look at what it's complaining about. This is a feature I LOVE about LILO, it's complain feature

Cool

Thanks again. As su,I did:

cp -a vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk /boot/vmlinuz-mdk

and my lilo now looks like:

default = SuSE
message = /boot/message
prompt
timeout = 80
boot = /dev/hda

image = /boot/vmlinuz
label = SuSE
append = "hdd=ide-scsi hddlun=0 splash=silent showopts"
initrd = /boot/initrd
optional
root = /dev/hdb5
vga = 0x31a

other = /dev/hda2
label = Windows98

other = /dev/hdb1
label = Dos

image = /boot/vmlinuz-mdk
label = Mandrake
append = "devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi"
initrd = /boot/initrd
optional
root = /dev/hdb2
vga = 788

(I remembered to save the lilo.conf file and run lilo). Rebooted, and the symptoms are the same ....

/boot/initrd should be different for Mandrake. Copy over Mandrake's initrd and rename it:
cp /Mandy/boot/initrd-2.4.18-mdk /boot/initrd-Mandy
And make the changes in lilo.

Comment out:
optional

Save, rerun lilo..

Cool

That done, but no difference.

The Mandrake boot process gets passed the "Press "I" to enter interactive mode, and gets to a couple of lines after "configuring kernel parameters" - it's too quick to see the next two or three lines - then it starts the "/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line *** : ********** Permission denied" errors.

Cheers

Hmmm...

There is quite a bit of stuff within that file, the first of which is the logger. What are your permissions on that file specifically?

ls -l /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

I am still leaning towards something with the kernel and root bit though...

Post up your drive configuration, and tell us what your partitions are like.

Cool

ls -l /home/mdk-hdb2/etc/rc.sysinit
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 33831 2003-03-13 09:37 rc.sysinit

The hda drive has three FAT32 partitions.

The hdb drive has five partitions:
hdb1 = FAT32
hdb2 = Mandrake
hdb5 = SuSE
hdb6 = linux swap
hdb7 = FAT32

Before you through SuSE on there did your Mandrake install have seperate partitions for maybe /var and possibly /usr ? This could also be symptomatic of not having a /var partition mounted (since it doesn't exist ).

And does *** in your post actually have line numbers in it? If so, can you tell us maybe 3 or 4 of them?

Cool

The Mandrake and SuSE installs are independant - ie, all directories including /home are are contained within the respective partitions.

A lot of lines scroll up the screen, the last of them look like this:

/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 1: /bin/gettext: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 466: /bin/rm: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 471: bin/mount: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 472: bin/mount: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 473: bin/mount: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 474: bin/mount: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 490: /bin/rm: Permission denied
^[[P/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 1: /bin/uname Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 1:/bin/grep: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 1: /bin/cat: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 467: /bin/gettext: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 475: /sbin/initlog: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 436: /sbin/initlog: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 1: /bin/gettext: Permission denied
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line /etc/rc.d/rc.modules: /bin/sh: bad interpreter
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 549: /bin/grep: Permission denied

Yeah, you got me... I can only *guess* that it was from overwriting a partition that contained some valuable info, possible the /bin partition. If you have got backups all made, I'd wipe both installs, strap in one, strap in the other, then follow the above posts to make it all clean and neat and see how things run. It's likely just a hiccup from slapping one over the other and back again.

Cool

Before posting my problem, I had Mandrake installed on hdb2, and nothing on hdb5 - Mandrake worked ok. It is when I installed SuSE on hdb5, that I ran into the current problem. I tried new installs of both Mandrake and SuSE into (only) their respective partitions. Having done this several times, I don't think another series of installs will help me.

As an experiment, I setup vmlinuz-suse and initrd on hdb5 (SuSE partition), and vmlinuz-mdk and initrd-mdk on hdb2 (Mandrake partition) - so that the Mandrake files are not in the /boot directory on theSuSE partition, and vice versa. (The Mandrake files need to be in the SuSE /boot directory when running lilo to avoid lilo errors, and then removed for this experiment).

Unfortunately, this did not solve the Mandrake booting problem.

Thank you MasterC for all your help. Maybe someone might have some other clues.