kernel panic at boot

chiyoko · 10-25-2006, 01:33 PM

hi there, i would really like some help, as this has caused me so much frustration.

when trying to install most linux distros, i always get the same message:

kernel panic - kernel not syncing

i get this before linux even boots for install. either while loading the kernel into memory, or just after.

the linux distros that actually work are Mandrake 10.1, SuSE 10.1 and FC5. ALL the others give me the same error. how can i resolve this. i was hoping to test mandriva 2007, but noooo. it actually installs when i use the alt1 kernel, but then at boot...KERNEL PANIC.

please, if anyone knows how to get this working please tell me.

uselpa · 10-25-2006, 03:18 PM

as seen here:

Quote:

'kernel panic - not syncing' just means that because of the errors that happened before the kernel stops work and especially doesn't write anything to disk. which is a good thing, because it would destroy you data otherwise...

So this message is a consequence of something that went wrong before. You need to give us the messages that are preceding this one.

kev000 · 10-29-2006, 07:56 PM

I'm running an EPIA SP8000 motherboard with 256 MB of RAM and I'm getting a kernel halt on Linux cd's such as Ubuntu 6.10. Oddly enough, linux kernel 2.6.17-7 works but 2.6.17-10 doesn't. I even compiled my own kernel (2.6.18.1) but it doesn't work either. I get the "not syncing" thing also.

What hardware do you use?

uselpa · 10-30-2006, 12:19 AM

It doesn't really matter what hardware I use (it's a no-name thing anyway, assembled by a collegue of mine).

Do you have any preceding error message?
If it happens in the installer, try to press Alt-Ctrl-F1 through Alt-Ctrl-F7 to see if any console has an interesting message.

Another thing worth trying is maybe Slackware - a text-based installer and a vanilla kernel. I found it less picky with hardware than Ubuntu for example.