FATAL: Kernel Too Old
 

Old DOS guy- newbie Linux guy. Just got by Slack 10.2 CDs in the mail.

I can boot with disk burned from web site and from disk made from Slackware CD as well as CD itself.

After install, system will not boot from HD. When I boot from the LILO floppy and mount /dev/HDA I get the regular boot information and these lines:

EXT2-fs warning mounting unchecked fs, running
e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Freeing Unused kernel memory: 68k freed
FATAL: Kernel too old

I also notice this error message during install when it asked for System Administrator password.

Welcome to LQ!

Sorry your first taste of Slackware was not a good one. This would definitely be an odd thing to see when trying it for the first time.

If you could possible answer a few questions, then maybe I, or someone more experienced then myself, will be able to help you better.

Could you be more specific? What disk from what website?


What is the exact command you used to mount the drive? What did you use to create the boot floppy? Is this from the instalation rutine or did you get it from a third party? Which kernel did you pick during the installation rutine (bare.i?), amd what happens when you try to install lilo to the hard disk and boot to it direclty?
This one worries me a bit. It probably has something to do with the kernel you selected during the install. If you did not select the standard bare.i, was there any reason you needed a different one?

regards,
...aaron

Another thing to check may be what partition software/formatting software you used to create your Linux partition? It's possible that some Windows software / old Linux software will create incorrect partitions which may bring up these sorts of errors.

FATAL Error: Answers to Questions
 

Thank you. As a guy use to building DOS and Window systems, I have to say I am frustrated but undetered!

Could you be more specific? What disk from what website?

This is a PII machine with a clean HD. No MS or Windows hanging around at all.

When I first began, I was going to just download what I needed from the Slackware website. I made 1 boot disk using the bare.i image and two install disks for the root.

When looking at the packages I decided it would be easier to just buy the CDs from Slackware. So, I ordered them and while I waited I used the disks to boot, install the root, and fdisk the hard drive.

I used fdisk and partitioned the Maxtor hard drive. HDA1 is the swap disk and is 128 mb. HDA2 is the remainder of the disk- 4 gb of space


After booting 2 different times with both the Bare.i I made from the Slackware site and the Lilo disk I made from the Slackware CDs, at the boot prompt I entered the following command:

mount root=/dev/hda2

When this gave the FATAL error, I rebooted again and this time entered the following on the command line:

mount root=/dev/hda

Same error

With either boot disk, when I use the two Install disks I made I do not have any problems.

I notice when using the boot and install floppies that at the point the system craps out with the HD boot instead of FATAL: Kernel Too Old I get:

init started:BusyBox v0.60.5 (2003.02.16-05:06+0000) multi-call binary
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
/etc/rc.d/rc.S: /sbin/klogd: No such file or directory
cat use obsolete /pro/pci interface

Redo your installation by booting to the CD and then run the setup. From within the setup utility, reformat your partitions and then either create a new lilo boot disk or install lilo to the MBR of your hard drive.

It looks like your lilo disk you made is conflicting with your Slackware version.

regards,
...aaron

Still Trying- FATAL: Kernel Too Old
 

The LILO disk I have was made from the Slackware CDs. I have done an install on three different computers- 2 Pentium IIs and a Pentium III. I am now to a point where the system from the HD will boot using LILO. I pick "linux" and it goes through the whole boot process but always ends with FATAL: Kernel Too Old.

1. Is it possible that some libray loaded from 10.2 is looking for a newer kernel?

2. Is there a newer kernel that I can load somehow to see if that fixes this

3. Or I am just SOL?

Yes but you formatted the partitions with another utility correct? As mentioned by ledow, this is a common cause to this problem. Try using the utilities on the boot CD to partition and format your drive.

regards,
...aaron

It Really Works!
 

Thanks. It works really great. I have done several machines now and all is good. Appreciate the patient guidance.

;) no problem. Have fun Slacking!

...aaron