zipslack

dabigpig · 09-28-2003, 09:20 PM

i'm not a total newbie to linux but ya i should be treated as one... i have played with mandrake 8.1 for a couple weeks but haven't had a system that i can keep it on so when i read about zipslack i decided to give it a try... after i finally figured out my partitioning in the linux.bat and was happy that i didn't see the VFS: unable to mount root error and just as i was about to break out the champaign i get "kernel panic: no init found Try passing init= option to kernel" now i have no clue what this means or how to fix it but am willing to figure it out... with you're help of course. i have been playing for a dayish with it and this is as far as i have gotten... plz help

thx
-- ^-_-^

Thymox · 09-29-2003, 04:08 AM

Welcome to LQ, dabigpig.

Sometimes there are things that are required to boot the kernel but are not directly supported by the kernel (filesystems, etc). These are often put into something called an initial ramdisk. Using loadlin (the DOS app to boot Linux - used as part of your boot.bat) you can pass the option init=initrd.gz. Make sure you know where your initrd.gz file is, obviously.

This is actually harder to do on fully installed systems but relatively easy to sort out with loadling/umsdos systems... and luckily you have the latter

dabigpig · 09-29-2003, 11:42 PM

so from dos when i run loadlin i would type the following?

C:\linux>loadlin init=C:\linux\dev\initrd.gz

and once i do this will i ever have to do this again or everytime i wanna start zipslack....

jeeze i feel like such a n00b.... well i am... sorry if i'm stupid it's just hard cuz i know my windows machine inside and out but have just barely begun to scratch the surface with linux.

Thymox · 09-30-2003, 06:14 PM

No...

Loadlin needs a number of parameters, and so it is easier to put them into a 1 line batch file and run that instead

Firstly a few questions.

Do you know which partition you installed Linux onto? (/dev/hda2?)
Do you have a copy of the kernel file itself? (vmlinuz?)
Do you have a copy of the initrd file?

If you answered yes to all of the above, then you can use loadlin like this:
C:\LOADLIN> loadlin kernel /dev/partition initrd=initrdfile
Obviously substituting the kernel with your vmlinuz file, the partition with the appropriate partition, and the initrdfile with your initrd.gz file. With those in place, you should then boot into your Linux system.

aaa · 10-01-2003, 06:57 AM

From DOS, run:
C:\linux\loadlin.exe C:\linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 rw
If that works, put it in your C:\linux\linux.bat instead of the un-rem'd line that has /dev/sda4 in it. Then all you need to run from DOS is C:\linux\linux (or copy linux.bat to C:, and all you need to type is "linux"). No initrd is needed in Zipslack.

dabigpig · 10-02-2003, 02:00 AM

@ aaa i've allready figured out my partitioning after much confusion i did get if figured out...

my linux.bat uncommented line is

Code:

\linux\loadlin  \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb1 rw

@ Thymox
Do you know which partition you installed Linux onto? (/dev/hda2?)
see above
Do you have a copy of the kernel file itself? (vmlinuz?)
the kernel file is at C:linux\vmlinuz
Do you have a copy of the initrd file?
initrd is at

so i should replace my linux.bat line with

Code:

C:\linux\ loadlin C:\linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb1 rw  initrd=C:\linux\dev\initrd

i'll try that next time i restart my machine... using windows 98se so should take like 10minutes tops...