problem with installation, I am new in this...
 

Just one long question in regard to Linux Slackware installation

I have an old PC with an old Pentium 486 processor, 80M RAM and two 4 gig HD, I have installed Red-hat 9.0 on it but the GUI version is so damn slow. I must say I use this old PC for learning purpose only so no harm can be done to any data.

Now the question:
I am trying to install Linux Slackware 8.1 on this old PC. I don't want the GUI, The BIOS on this PC can not boot from the CD-ROM, I have used rawrite and made the installation images on 5 floppies.
I also have two different kernel to boot the PC on 2 different floppy, a Bare.i and old_CD.i

when I boot with any of the two kernels, and after I go through the initial boot and juggling all 5 installation floppies, I get a Kernel Panic message.

Any Idea what may be wrong? Any suggestions?

I have read from Slackware.com and none of the other kernels seems to be a better choice as I have no scsi card or nothing unusual.

whats the kernel panic message it gives

I just did the installation process once more, this time I noticed it failed first on disk #2 with this error: "loading disk #2 floppy0: data CRC error: Track 18, head 1, sector 12, size 2 I/O Error dev, 02:00 (floppy), sector 677"

and still get the the kernel panic like this: "Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel."

I will redo the disk #2 on a new floppy, that one I can figure out.
what do I do with the Kernel panic???

I used rawrite and put copied 2nd installation image, disk #2.
tried the installation process again using kernel Bare.i to boot and went through swaping disks and this time I got this errors,

Please don't panic::confused:

loading disk #5 .... done.
EXT2-fs warning: mountin unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Freeing unused kernel memory: 228k freed
EXT2-fs error (device ramdisk(1,0)): ext2_check_page: bad entry in directory #411: rec_len is smaller than minimal - offset=0, inode=65, rec_len=0, name_len=0
EXT2-fs error (device ramdisk(1,0)): ext2_check_page: bad entry in dirctory #340: rec_len is smaller than minimal - offset=1024, inode=65, rec_len=0, name_len=0

Kernel panic No init found, Try passing init= option to kernel.


:scratch: HELP

I had the same problem trying to install redhat on 2 of my 486's, so I gave up on that pos. However installing SW was no problem. Question though, I have one boot disk and two root disks. Why do you have 5 disks? BTW that floppy error may possibly indicate a bad disk. You can attempt a full format and rewriting but be warned it may be shot.

Sounds like a floppy failure still. I had a time to finally get 5 good floppys made. Yes Slackware 8.1 needs 5. ).1 just uses two.
You might try using the zipinstall method or even Zipslack. You might find some useful tips here: http://home.earthlink.net/~gnashley/...ix8_1howto.htm
You should be able to run X with Balcbox window manager. You might be surprised at how well it runs.

thanks for the help, but I think the problem is my CD-ROM , I found similar problems listed in this forum. http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...-fs%2Berror%2B(device%2Bramdisk(1,0)):%2Bext2_check_page%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3Dpan.2002.09.06.19.34.10.618851.666%2540aracnet.com%26rnum%3D6
In the mean time I installed RH 9. as a server and just have to use this for now to teach myself some Linux stuff.
take care all