Grub Guru's advise needed to install Gentoo???
 

after several days of installing gentoo, i've come to a sudden stop. I have followed the installation docs at www.gentoo.org to the letter and still im not able to boot. everytime i boot i get error15: file not found.

i have 250gb SATA drive and created the following the partitions

/sda1 /boot
/sda2 /swap
/sda3 /root
/sda4 /home

here is my grub.conf file:

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

Title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.14
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/sda3 vga=0x318 video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap or video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85

cd /boot
ls
bzImage config-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 grub kernel-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 lost+found

i have tried everything possible, i've googled for error15: file not found and tried the suggested solutions to no avail. i really want to test gentoo, but im beginning to get alittle frustrated. if anyone can think of anything, i will appreciated. also, if you need any additional info, please let me know

Don't let the boot loader dictate whether you can use your OS or not ;)

Feel free to use Lilo. It may feel archaic at first, but it's simplicity helps when Grub just confuses you.

If you really want to troubleshoot this:
When you boot the live-CD and chroot into your new install (after doing all the preliminary steps) what happens when you run:
grub-install

Do you get any errors, if so, what are they?

I run a pretty un-sliced setup, and my grub.conf works, so it might be something to do with where /boot is living and what you are specifying for your root line. Something to note is that your filesystems aren't mounted according to /etc/fstab at the point that Grub is trying to load your kernel; so your root (hd0,0) line may be the culprit here.

Cool

You could try changing the kernel line from:

kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.14-gentoo-r5

to

kernel (hd0,0)/kernel-2.6.14-gentoo-r5

That's how SuSE sets it up. Don't know if it will make a differenct. But it's worth a try.

thanks for the reply, i've already done grub-install, and there were no errors. i installed grub because it was listed on the installation manual, but maybe i'll try lilo. do you think if i install lilo without removing grub, it will create a problem? about the fstab, i didnt understand what you said. here is my fstab

/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime
/dev/sda3 /root ext3 noatime
/dev/sda4 /home ext3 noatime
/dev/sda2 none swap sw
/dev/fd0 mnt/floppy iso9660 noauto,ro

none /proc proc defaults
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults

hope this helps

/etc/fstab is a file on the filesystem. The filesystem is not mounted when Grub is trying to load a kernel, so it doesn't know if /boot is on a seperate partition (so you have to tell it exactly what partition your kernel lives on and in what directory, which is done with kernel (hd0,0) but might be different with your partition layout).

You can safely have both lilo and grub co-existing, but it's better to just choose 1. Once you run /sbin/lilo (after editing your /etc/lilo.conf) you will install Lilo into your MBR, overwriting grub.

Cool

How about putting a # infront of this fellow to disable it. It simplfies the matter a bit.
The other possibility is the complicated parameters passed at kernel boot time. I would simplify it with this modification (in red and blue)


worth a try.

I don't have a problem with Lilo and has used it to boot its maximum of 27 systems. However I know Grub is pretty reliable and much simpler to work with than Lilo, as it is booting over 100 systems for me in the box.