Boot issues in Slackware 11
 

I finished my install and thought I followed the instructions, but I was wrong. THe drive will not boot. I get


LI


that's it nothing else it just sits there. Fortunately I created and boot disk in the install process. THe boot disk boots ok and I can get into the system. NOw I would like to fix that boot partition. What do I do next?

Did you install LILO? Did you install it with the correct parameters? Post your lilo.conf and give details about your root partitions and we'll see what we can do ;)

(to get /etc/lilo.conf without booting, I suggest using a LiveCD, either Slackware Disc 1, Slax, Knoppix or PCLinuxOS; mount your root partition and open /etc/lilo.conf AS READ-ONLY; then cut and paste the file into a posting here; all of the above come with Firefox and Konqueror; do not go into your /boot directory logged in as root, you may accidentally delete something)

Joel

That was a lot of info. Mostly a forign language, but I'm going to try to follow......I think.

DId I install LILO.....what is LILO?

LiLo is the boot loader. it's what loads linux and allows your machine to boot. if it didn't get installed correctly you wouldn't be able to boot your computer
*edit=I just noticed that that you have a working boot disk*

You should be able to run "pkgtool" in the terminal (konsole I'm guessing) then select "setup" and then "liloconfig" (with the spacebar to select it) and re run the part of the script that installs Lilo. I usually put lilo on the MBR on the first Hard Disk... the third option listed as "possibly unsafe" ;)

Post any errors from that.
*/edit*

Slackware Disk 1 is sort of a "LiveCD" but probably not terribly usefull for someone not comfortable with the CLI, but it may be enough to get you into your system to find the problems.

Stick in CD-1 and re-boot the computer, at the first prompt (where you probably typed something like "huge26.s" or just pressed "enter" there is a bunch of stuff on the screen that stuff will change if you type "alt-F2"(or F3,F4... i forget how many screens there are) anyways, on one of those screens there should be something that tells you how too boot if you are having problems with a new kernel something like 'linux root=/dev/hda1 ro ....' I really don't remember but it's something along those lines.

type that in and it should boot your Slackware install using the kernel from the disk (Not terribly important at the moment, we just want in to access the file /etc/lilo.conf)

Once you get in to the Slackware install you'll be at the CLI again, typing "xwmconfig" will let you pick your GUI xfce or kde should be fine. then "startx" should give you a basic GUI environment (Low resolution likely not what you'll want when you get the booting problem fixed, but again, we just need to look at and fix some files.

If you have wired Internet (wifi probably won't work without more tweaking) you should have internet access from your slackware. then you can just find the file in whatever file browser you have open it up and copy/paste it here... following trashbird1240s directions... lots of information can be very helpful.

Don't edit any files, because my directions will have you in there as the root user and as root you could easily break your system (more than it may already be).

If the directions above don't work. go download a new LiveCD (Knoppix, DamnSmallLinux, or other ones mentioned in this thread.) and boot it. it should work fine as a full system running from CD and RAM... no need for a hard drive. From the live cd you should be able to "mount" your hard drive(s) and look for the file that you need to fix.

mounting makes the drive partition available to the linux system. the command will be something along the lines of "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hd" where hda1 = the hard drive you installed Slackware on.

Yes you did install lilo, because the "LI" is the first half of LILOs name. Lilo is the LInux LOader (= the boot manager). The fact that it only shows LI says lilo fails to load linux, so probably it was not configured correctly.

As you can boot using your boot disk you can skip the LiveCD step and the mounting trashbird1240 proposed. Boot with your floppy and post the contents of /etc/lilo.conf and your hard disk setup.

Worked great now on to the next problem
 

Thanks guys that worked great. I booted the system with my disk and did the pkgtool and used it to put in in the MBR. Works like a charm Well here's the next problem.

when I startx i get and error message. Kstartupconfig. I looked and this file does not exist where the program is looking to find it. How can I create the file?

StartX
 

how do I setup the KDE Desktop environment?

did you try "xwmconfig" ? if you haven't just boot up, loginto root or whatever and type that, then select what you'd like to use. Does that solve the problem?

XWMconfog only chooses it does not set it up. I can choose any of the others and it works just fine. But KDE does not work.

hrrrmmm.....I've got no clue, i just started using linux less than a week ago so you could say i'm still a :newbie:

What is the exact error message you get trying to start KDE?

Got it. I reinstalled and it is ok now
thanks everyone.