[SOLVED] Trying to install kernel 2.2.16.

stf92 · 07-29-2014, 02:46 PM

Hi: I have installed a slackware distribution containing kernel 2.2.16 in one of the hard disk partitions. I only have the files, not the installer. These are the kernel image and the packages. When I boot the system, it says:

Code:

INIT: version 2.78 booting
sh: error in loading shared libraries: libtermcap.so.2: cannot open shared object file: no such file or directory
INIT: entering runlevel: 3
sh: error in loading shared libraries: libtermcap.so.2: cannot open shared object file: no such file or directory

Welcome to Linux.

(none) login:

It doesn't even run fsck and it does not remount the root device. Hence, when I login as root, it says:

Code:

login[10]: unable to change tty '/dev/tty1' for user 'root'
Unable to change tty '/dev/tty1': Illegal seek.

However, I have the following files in /:

Code:

/usr/lib/libtermcap.so  -> /lib/libtermcap.so.2.0.8
/usr/i386-slackware-linux-gnulibc1/lib/libtermcap.so.2.0.8
/usr/i386-slackware-linux-gnulibc1/lib/libtermcap.so.2.0 -> libtermcap.so.2.0.8
/lib/libtermcap.so.2.0.8

Perhaps I should link libtermcap.so.2.0.8 to libtermcap.s0.2?

smallpond · 07-29-2014, 03:25 PM

You can add another link in lib:

Code:

cd /lib
ln -s libtermcap.so.2.0.8 libtermcap.so.2

I am stumped on the "Illegal seek" message, but post back with more info once you get termcap working.

stf92 · 07-29-2014, 03:46 PM

I did the link in /lib and this time it did fsck'd the filesystem. And I could login.

Code:

Welcome to Linux.

(none) login: root
Linux. 
You have mail.
login[73]: ROOT LOGIN on 'tty1'
root@(none):~#

The only thing is that fsck says:

Code:

/sbin/e2fsck: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) (/dev/hda7)
Get a newer version of e2fsck!

And then the usual prompt "you will now be given a chance to log into...". It is because I formatted the partition with e2fsck from slackware 12.0! I'll reformat and post again.

Didier Spaier · 07-29-2014, 03:47 PM

So that should be Slackware 7.1 released in June, 2000.

Just curious: what do you intend to do with that?

stf92 · 07-29-2014, 04:14 PM

Didactical purposes.

John VV · 07-29-2014, 04:39 PM

well have fun with the very old "kernel 2.2"
and a 14 year old version of slack

is this hardware ALSO from 1995 to 2001

stf92 · 07-29-2014, 05:09 PM

I ran mke2fs from the old distribution and reinstalled the packages. Now it boots OK except for:

Code:

cat: /proc/ksyms: No such file or directory.

Any idea what this ksyms can be?

Didier Spaier · 07-29-2014, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stf92

Any idea what this ksyms can be?

A bit of googling never hurts (this remark has a didactical purpose). That's said you could try "cat /proc/kallsyms" instead.

stf92 · 07-29-2014, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John VV

well have fun with the very old "kernel 2.2"
and a 14 year old version of slack

is this hardware ALSO from 1995 to 2001

It is from 2003. It could also be a newer machine, though I don't know if it would support SATA.

stf92 · 07-29-2014, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Didier Spaier

A bit of googling never hurts (this remark has a didactical purpose). That's said you could try "cat /proc/kallsyms" instead.

What I found was this:

Quote:

In kernel 2.4, there was a /proc/ksyms file. This file, if I understand
>correctly, was a method to access the kernel's public symbol table. What
>was displayed had all the public kernel's symbols (variables,
>functions..) and its associated global addresses, along with some other
>usefull stuff, like a CRC value, and the module exporting every specific
>symbol.

It seems not to be important except for developers. However, it is a pity. For example, in this page

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Module-HOWTO/x197.html

it is taught how to do something useful with it. A more serious issue is this:

Code:

# fdisk -l
cannot open /proc/partitions
# ls -l /proc
total 0
#

It seems I missed some step in the installation.

Didier Spaier · 07-29-2014, 11:40 PM

Well, if that were a 2.6 kernel I'd say you just missed to check the PROC_FS configuration option, but I have no experience on a 2.2 kernel.

But didn't you just forget to mount the proc file system by chance? With a 2.6 kernel at least you should have this in /etc/fstab

Code:

proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0

That's probably what you miss as initially populating /etc/fstab is usually the installer's job, but as you couldn't use an installer that becomes your job

Before you do the change in /etc/fstab you could just try

Code:

mount -t proc proc /proc

And see if your /proc tree becomes automagically populated.

To know more, see "man proc" and Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt in your kernel source tree.

stf92 · 07-30-2014, 07:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Didier Spaier

But didn't you just forget to mount the proc file system by chance?

Yes, thanks. I realized it when I ran ps and a notification appeared about mounting /proc! devpts should likely be mounted too. In this distribution setup can be run from the hard disk. So, next time I'll run setup instead of installing manually (after installing the base packages of course).