I decided to have a look at Lindows v4. I am already running XP and redhat 9. After installing Lindows it installed its own booter that recognised XP but redhat 9 was gone. Being new to this boot sector stuff I reinstalled redhat 9. Again XP was recognised and boots as does redhat 9, however this time Lindows was recognised but won't boot. I figure I need to edit the grub configuration file to let grub know about the lindows kernel. But what do I need to add??? There is an entry for Lindows in grub config but it doesn't mention the kernel version etc as it does for redhat.

"it doesn't mention the kernel version etc as it does for redhat."

You can name a kernel anything that you want. The version number is not necessary. To find out what the Lindows kernel is named list the directory of /boot on the Lindows partition.

This is the grub conf. I can at least now get Lindows to start to boot but it has a kernel panic concerning the LABEL....cannot access. ( I copied and pasted the redhat info into the Lindows section of the grub conf.) The boot stuff for lindows is in the /boot directory. I renamed the necessary parts for Lindows so the file now appears as below. What other changes are required to get past the kernel panic??


title Crasher Linux (2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at)
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at.img
title XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
title Lindows Sux
root (hd0,9)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.20.gz

As a guess, try this in the Lindows section:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20 ro root=/dev/hda10 hdc=ide-scsi

Also try using lilo.

I have checked thru settings and all appear correct. Could it be related to the beyond the 1024 barrier??? Although it was booting fine before the install. I have another system that I just compiled the kernel on and it is doing the same. All the files are in /boot and have the correct names etc listed in grub config, although the old kernel boots fine....hmmmm I am confused.....is there a booting god around???

"I have checked thru settings and all appear correct."

I read someplace that there is a bug in grub that root=LABEL=/ does not always work right. That is why I suggested an alternate syntax even though yours is correct.

Yes thanks for the suggestion, I did try it but the kernel panic was the same......I am going to try loading Lindows on another drive to see what it using in its config.....don't know if it uses grub but it may give me a clue. The really frustrating part is the new kernel on another machine that is giving the same error....I gotta be doing something silly (however the kernel compile automatically modified grub config for the new kernel with the same error!)...

You might also want to try using LILO. I have heard of a lot of problems out of Grub. I don't think it is you. Grub just sucks for some reason.

My question is: if grub.conf just states kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at ro root=LABEL=/ with nothing more, would it function properly? Would it boot from the HD? Or does the entry need something like kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi?

...then again, Crasherz could have just ran into another bug in Grub. I always heard that it sucked anyway, so I use LILO when I can.

Thanks for the help guys......after some more disaster installs of Lindows (trashing boot sector on the primary HDD etc) I have decided that Lindows is a type of linux virus and have decided to stay happy with redhat 9.

In which harddisk and which partition did you install RedHat and Lindows? I happened to have the same problem (the kernel panic things) when I compile a new kernel with root=LABEL=/ thing. JUst replace it with your exact partition number root=/dev/hd**. I think grub is just OK.

Nobody tried LILO? It's amazing how often I have heard about this going away when LILO was used. Does it even prompt you if you want LILO? You might need to use Expert Mode.