I have a system with win2k, suse9, and slack10, installed in that order. When I installed slack, I changed the location of the swap partition. Suse no longer boots correctly and I think it is because it does not know where to find the swap. I've changed the fstab file to indicate where it is located, but that doesn't help. Do I need to note the change somewhere else?

If I do end up having to reinstall suse, is there an option to not install grub? I don't recall seeing that option.

/etc/fstab is the right location. Have you inititialized your swap partition (called mkswap for the partition in question)?

Check if you have an option in your suse entry in lilo.conf (if you use lilo) something like "resume=hd<your swap partition>. Make sure it points to the new location.

I do not have "resume=hd<your swap partition> in my lilo.conf. However, that line is not listed for my SLACK section either and it works fine. Here's part of my lilo.conf.

image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdf1
label = SLACK
append="hdb=ide-scsi" # above line added for scsi emulation for cdrw
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdf6
label = SUSE
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hde1 label = windows
# map-drive = 0x80
# to = 0x81
# map-drive = 0x81
# to = 0x80
table = /dev/hde
# Windows bootable partition config ends ~

What does the "resume... line do if I enter it?

It turns out that modprobe is not loading ANY modules on bootup, which probably explains my problems more than the swap business. On bootup, I recall seeing failure messages referring to swap, but dmesg shows that it did seem to pick up the swap partition after all. lsmod shows nothing being loaded, and an error message I get when manually entering modprobe states that the directory of modules that it is looking for, something/something/2.4.26 does not exist. I don't know what would have happened. Sure hope someone can clue me in....

I'd post error messages and boot information if I could, but I'm posting in slack and have no way that I know of to get those logs from suse to slack without my mouse, internet, etc. working.

It looks like you're booting the same kernel for Slack and Suse. You have "image=/boot/vmlinuz" for both distro's. Unless you have two separate lilo.conf files (one for each root partition), one of the "image" entries should be something like "image=/mnt/slack/boot/vmlinuz"

Thanks for pointing that out. I really should not have missed that. I'll correct that later today and that should take care of the problem.

well, I've tried several different versions of "image=/mnt/slack/boot/vmlinuz" and cannot get /sbin/lilo to accept any of them. I have two hard drives, with the second /dev/hdf, slack on hdf1 and suse on hdf6. I've tried "image=/mnt/hdf6/boot/vmlinuz" "image=/mnt/dev/hdf6/boot/vmlinuz" "image=/mnt/hdf1/boot/vmlinuz", and maybe others, all more shots in the dark than the previous.

damn, still a confused noob....

What hd is lilo installed on?
MBR or root partition?

Also, post your /etc/fstab file and complete /etc/lilo.conf

Lilo is in the MBR, which is on the first HD, /dev/hde.

/etc/lilo.conf:

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hde
#compact # faster, but won't work on all systems.
prompt
timeout = 300
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
vga = 773
# Normal VGA console
# vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
# vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769
# ramdisk = 0 # paranoia setting
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdf1
label = SLACK
append="hdb=ide-scsi"
# above line added for scsi emulation for cdrw
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins

image =/boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdf6
label = SUSE
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hde1
label = windows
# map-drive = 0x80
# to = 0x81
# map-drive = 0x81
# to = 0x80
table = /dev/hde
# Windows bootable partition config ends
~


Here is the SLACK /etc/fstab file:

/dev/hdf1 / reiserfs defaults 1 1
/dev/hdf2 /home reiserfs defaults 1 2
/dev/hde1 /windows vfat gid=100,umask=002,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/hde2 /w2 vfat defaults 1 0
/dev/hde3 /w3 vfat defaults 1 0
/dev/hde5 /w4 vfat defaults 1 0
/dev/hde6 /w5 vfat defaults 1 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/camera vfat noauto,users 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,users,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
/dev/sda4 /mnt/zip vfat noauto,user 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hdf6 /suse reiserfs defaults 0 0
~
****p.s. I just added this last line. It was not there when I was trying to fix my problems

I'd imagine that you need the SUSE /etc/fstab file, though:

/dev/hdf6 / reiserfs defaults 1 1
/dev/hdf3 /data1 auto noauto,user 0 0
/dev/hde1 /windows/C vfat users,gid=users,umask=0002,iocharset=iso8859-1,code=437 0 0
/dev/hdf1 /windows/D vfat users,gid=users,umask=0002,iocharset=iso8859-1,code=437 0 0

/dev/hdf5 swap swap pri=42 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs noauto 0 0
/dev/cdrecorder /media/cdrecorder auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto noauto,user,sync 0 0
~
~


Here is the contents of /suse/boot

tim@sbc:/suse/boot$ ls
Kerntypes-2.4.21-226-athlon config-2.4.21-226-athlon message
System.map-2.4.21-226-athlon grub/ vmlinux-2.4.21-226-athlon.gz
backup_mbr initrd@ vmlinuz@
boot@ initrd-2.4.21-226-athlon vmlinuz-2.4.21-226-athlon


I'd imagine I need to use the vmlinuz-2.4.21-226-athlon kernel, although it doesn't look familiar.


thanks for your help

You installed Slack after Windows and Suse were already installed. The way I see it, if you installed lilo (again - it was already there with Suse) with Slack, it overwrote the Suse lilo already in MBR. So booting takes place from Slack's point of view, therefore all entries in lilo.conf should reflect that.

Looking at fstab (slack), you have the line to mount Suse: For that to work, you must have a folder "suse" (case sensitive) in your Slack / directory

Then edit lilo.conf and change the Suse entry from to assuming that "vmlinuz-2.4.21-226-athlon" is your working kernel in Suse

Give that a shot. If it doesn't work, it's probably because of the Suse "image" line in lilo.conf. Maybe you use the initrd option to boot, I'm not familiar with Suse

Well, I changed /etc/lilo.conf to:

Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdf1
label = SLACK
append="hdb=ide-scsi"
# above line added for scsi emulation for cdrw
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins

image =/suse/boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdf6
label = SUSE
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hde1
label = windows
# map-drive = 0x80
# to = 0x81
# map-drive = 0x81
# to = 0x80
table = /dev/hde
# Windows bootable partition config ends


I also used
image =/suse/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-226-athlon


Both were an improvement in that at least /sbin/lilo would run them, but when trying to boot into
suse, I got KERNEL PANIC: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 21:46 , I've searched but have found
no info on this error message.

My old Suse 9.0 Lilo entry looks like this:
I think you need the "initrd" entry.
Both my 9.0 & 9.1 have the "splash=silent" and "desktop" entries after "append".

thanks, 2d*, that did it.