Linux install
 

Well, I'm ankle deep now:

Just installing Slackware 8.1 on my P166. I have just put in my root disk and have come to the following stumbling block not more than 1 min after hitting enter:

"Kernel panic: no init found. Try passing init=open to kernel"

I'm trying to figure out exactly what this means...? It would appear to me that the setup is looking for an init file, but is confused/doesn't know where to look.

Does this have something to do with the fact that there's more than one HD....?

Anyone have suggestions? At this point, the system is locked up. Can't CTRL + ALT+DEL, hit Enter, ESC etc.....

System:

P166
2 HD's, 1 2GB and a 3.2GB
Hitachi CDROM
128MB's

Ach me, but I forgot:

I am a TOTAL Linux newbie, and a newbie to LinuxQuestions.org....please be gentle. :newbie:

I'm from Victoria, BC Canada, am 27, have a background in Oracle and currently work as an ISP tech support.

Looking forward to getting into the Linux world.

What do you mean root disk? Do you mean boot disk?

Oh and my advice, if you are a newbie to Linux, i would say not to start with a distro like Slackware unles you COMPLETELY up to it, i would say Mandrake or Redhat to get the drift...you can have slack aswell, but getting use to Mandrake Or Redhat would be a better choice...

#Garry

p.s. Welcome to LQ and the world of Linux :D

From what I understand, I was under the impression that the boot disk is what you first start with while installing Slack 8.1? Boot goes first, followed by the root disk<s> Feel free to correct me here if I'm mistaken.

See http://www.slackware.org/install/


Thanks for the tips.....:D

Ok yep i get ya, (just like in debian) anyway....where did you get your slackware disks from?

Do you have a linux partiton yet?

Which hard drive you installing too?

#Garry

ftp.slackware.com is my source...

As far as the partitions go, I believe they are setup after this initial setup...? Again, at this point I'm just kinda wingin it.....sorta.
So, with a bit more reading, I've found that I need the Boot disk, with the rawrite of bare.i, Root Disk with color.gz, and the 5 install disks with install file on each......:rolleyes:

I'm a total newbie too just started on Slackware last weekend ... anyway I had a very similar error message trying to install from the boot+root disks.

I figured that it might be that color.gz is c. 2MB and a floppy holds 1.44MB? Haven't figured this out yet, but: What I ended up doing was copying files (using a great serial port prog called file maven) from my Windows comp to a DOS partition of the linux comp. The files I got were color.gz, bzimage (the kernel equivalent of bare.i - found under kernels in the FTP sites) and all those in the loadlin.zip archive.

Then I used:
loadlin bzimage rw root=/dev/ram initrd=color.gz load_ramdisk=1

Which booted me up and got me into the setup program. You need a copy of the application files then, which is possibly where the five install files come in? I don't know. That's as far as I am.

Hope this helps???

pbhj

PS: GTINC - Do Mandrake / RedHat work well on P166, how about for P75?