Can't boot into Slack

Overconfidence · 06-25-2006, 12:34 PM

I knew I'd be back for more questions

Yesterday I burnt my slackware CDs and got it all installed on an old 6.4 gig HDD.

The only problem is, I can't get into it.

When I set the partition to bootable, it starts up, tries to load, and then comes up with the error "Error Loading Operating System".

If I use the CD and type in bare.i root=/dev/hda1 etc, it goes through, modifies a couple things, and then comes up with "Darkstar Login" which I can't pass. Root + the password I set doesn't work =(

Also note that I can't configure the existing install in setup (I can do everything else though).

Thanks,
OC

cwwilson721 · 06-25-2006, 12:52 PM

Best thing:

Since you can't login as root,(EDIT** and I can't spell**) you may want to format/reinstall.

This time, though, make sure you run the network setup, and install lilo in the MBR (use the 'expert' option.

I know it's drastic to format/reinstall, but as a newbie, it will be simpler/faster.

And WRITE DOWN YOUR PASSWORD.

Gethyn · 06-25-2006, 12:53 PM

Try following Shilo's Slackware install guide and reinstalling. It's a little hard to tell what went wrong from your post!

Edit: if you can figure out how, I'd also recommend installing grub instead of lilo. You can find out a basic install guide here.

Bruce Hill · 06-25-2006, 01:03 PM

Please don't follow Shilo's guide ... too much to mess up a n00b's system.

Use Daniël de Kok's instead.
(He's the guy who told you about md5 and asc files in your other thread.)

Overconfidence · 06-25-2006, 01:21 PM

My pass is memorized

... no clue why it didn't go, but it doesn't get that far anymore.

Formtting anyway since the install is otherwise botched.. I'm pretty sure I didn't do LILO right, and I'm changing my partitons.

edit: making sure, do I set the main partition to "bootable"?

cwwilson721 · 06-25-2006, 01:21 PM

Shilo's is fine, until the swaret area. Ignore that part.

The rest of it is fine. Shilo even admits the swaret deal is BAD.

cwwilson721 · 06-25-2006, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Overconfidence

My pass is memorized

... no clue why it didn't go, but it doesn't get that far anymore.

Formtting anyway since the install is otherwise botched.. I'm pretty sure I didn't do LILO right, and I'm changing my partitons.

As I said, sometimes, it's faster/easier to reinstall.

Make sure you know what each partition is. liloconfig does a good job, but it is fallible. Just remember to 'expert', and 'install to MBR' (Ignore the possibly unsafe warning)

Plus, there is no reason to make the Linux partition bootable. That is only needed for Microsoft and Mac OS's.

Gethyn · 06-25-2006, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwwilson721

Shilo's is fine, until the swaret area. Ignore that part.

The rest of it is fine. Shilo even admits the swaret deal is BAD.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that. I managed to break my system twice with swaret before reading about Pat's "Slackware way" of upgrading. A lot more effort than swaret but at least it didn't break anything! The part where Shilo advises to compile the kernel is also pretty unnecessary.

cwwilson721 · 06-25-2006, 04:58 PM

It's not a bad thing to learn. Eventually, you'll need it

Overconfidence · 06-25-2006, 05:58 PM

Alllright! I got it all to install/work.

I might as well ask a few other minor questions in here/make a few complaints

1. It takes for-freaking-ever to load, + all the password crap. Of course, I'm assuming that you're not intended to restart it much? (No way to auto shutdown, etc in my five minutes of toying around) .. It's also not noticeably faster than my winXP machine, but that's no big deal. I haven't even scratched any optimizing and there's a crapload of progs on here I don't need. That's my next step.

2. Can you change the GUI once it's installed? I'm guessing not.. KDE is fine, just wondering about a few of the others.

That's all I can think about right now, pretty good though.

Bruce Hill · 06-25-2006, 06:51 PM

Just a wee bit.

1 - There are ways to optimize the loading of the kernel. Which services are you running? Issue "ps -aux" for a full list of the current processes.

The file "/etc/rc.d/rc.M" is editable to start/not start certain services.

When you read and learn about them, the Slackware services are in "/etc/rc.d/" and you can issue as root "chmod +x rc.<some-service>" to make them executable and start, or "chmod -x rc.<some-service>" so that they won't be executable.

For instance, are you running a webserver on that box? If not, you should issue "chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd" so that Apache won't start. Before you change any of these services, check to see if they are executable by issuing "ls -lh /etc/rc.d/" and you'll see some output like this:

Code:

mingdao@silas:~$ ls -lh /etc/rc.d/
total 260K
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4 2006-06-18 08:29 rc.0 -> rc.6*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  893 2003-01-30 05:43 rc.4*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5.7K 2005-08-02 02:12 rc.6*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2.0K 2004-06-21 22:04 rc.K*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 8.0K 2005-07-25 07:00 rc.M*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  11K 2005-08-05 03:29 rc.S*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  466 2004-11-05 16:20 rc.acpid*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.6K 2006-04-23 04:50 rc.alsa*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.1K 2003-02-02 11:47 rc.atalk
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.1K 2003-09-22 03:07 rc.bind
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.5K 2006-03-01 06:53 rc.bind.new
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3.9K 2005-01-05 10:13 rc.cups*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  512 2005-09-13 12:13 rc.dnsmasq
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  119 2004-05-30 12:19 rc.font.new*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.2K 2006-06-18 00:45 rc.gpm*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.9K 2006-05-31 13:55 rc.hotplug*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  401 2003-03-06 05:28 rc.httpd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 8.1K 2005-09-08 04:44 rc.inet1*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.3K 2006-06-18 15:13 rc.inet1.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.5K 2005-09-05 03:19 rc.inet1.conf.new
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5.2K 2005-07-25 05:01 rc.inet2*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  497 2003-09-12 11:27 rc.inetd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.9K 2003-09-14 07:10 rc.ip_forward
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  595 2006-06-22 09:28 rc.local*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  26K 2006-06-22 09:28 rc.modules*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  25K 2006-03-13 09:00 rc.modules.new*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.3K 2005-08-28 10:53 rc.mysqld
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  125 2006-06-18 08:36 rc.netdevice*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2.4K 2004-06-07 05:52 rc.nfsd*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4.7K 2004-10-28 13:30 rc.pcmcia
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  905 2003-09-14 07:38 rc.portmap*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  791 2005-09-04 05:06 rc.samba
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.2K 2005-07-25 08:11 rc.saslauthd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  687 2002-06-05 05:09 rc.sendmail*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2.9K 2006-02-28 08:16 rc.serial*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.2K 2006-05-14 06:35 rc.sshd*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  860 2004-05-03 06:07 rc.syslog*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.7K 1999-09-12 04:48 rc.sysvinit*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.4K 2005-07-31 02:14 rc.udev
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3.5K 2006-06-22 10:42 rc.vdenetwork*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9.1K 2006-04-30 09:12 rc.wireless*
-rw------- 1 root root 7.2K 2005-07-25 15:19 rc.wireless.conf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2.3K 2005-08-01 07:56 rc.yp*

Anything with an x on the end of the first column is executable, and starts at boot.

Please read this Quick and Dirty Guide to Linux File Permissions to learn more.

1a - I can't shutdown the system. Couple of things. If you run KDE, you'll need to start in runlevel 4 to get a logout screen in KDE with the choices of reboot, shutdown, or end session. "How do I change the default runlevel," you're probably asking. Read Daniël de Kok's guide. Hint: The file is "/etc/inittab" and change init3 to init4.

If you use Xfce rather than KDE, the choice will be there already. If not, when you shutdown the X window system, and you're back at that nice white letter on black background prompt, just su to root and then issue "shutdown -h now" or some variant.

You might also need to change something else, if you run a 2.4 kernel. Issue "uname -a" and you'll find out what kernel, etc., you're running. If 2.4.x, and "shutdown -h now" stops with "Power down", do two things. In the file "/etc/rc.d/rc.modules" uncomment the line that reads:

Code:

#/sbin/modprobe apm

"What does uncomment mean," he queries? Read Daniël de Kok's guide. Here is a hint: remove the # in front of the line. And you'll also have to add this to "/etc/lilo.conf":

Code:

append="apm=power-off"

right after the line in that file that reads "boot = /dev/hda" and anytime you make a change to that file, issue "lilo" as root immediately afterwards, to write the new bootloader (read=save the changes).

2 - Changing the window manager (GUI).

You of course issued "adduser <username>" so that you login as a normal user, and not root. So after you login, issue "xwmconfig" and pick another desktop environment / window manager. Most likely you'll want either KDE of Xfce, if you've been a Windows/Mac GUI man.

Welcome to Slackware Linux! Your life has begun again...

Bruce Hill · 06-25-2006, 07:15 PM

Something else you're going to need, with guys like me telling you to change your configurations like this.

In Linux you have two interfaces ... GUI (graphical user interface), and CLI (command line interface). Most experienced Slackers are using CLI to work on their systems -- and will tell you that way to do things. Heck, I don't even know how to change system configs from GUI.

So, you'll need to start by reading this Introduction to the Linux command line .

And please, read that guide I linked you to by Daniël de Kok. It's very standard, and you won't mess up your system at all following it.