Trouble booting SUSE 9.3
 

I made this post on the Newbie forum, but I thought I might get better/more responses here. Keep in mind though, newbie. ;)

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I've been having trouble getting SUSE to boot. I've tried different boot options to no avail.

I just installed it and after the install it booted up fine. I ran the update and it installed quite a few things (including a new kernel). It told me to run a file /sbin/lilo (I think), but I wasn't able to do that before rebooting. Now, when I try to boot up it tells me this:

Loading required Kernel modules...done
INIT: Panic: segmentation violation at 0xffffe420! sleeping for 30 seconds.

Well, it decides to take a much longer nap and never do anything afterward. I've had trouble with installing linux before and I thought I was finally able to get it to work on this computer.

I wanted to mention I can boot into SUSE, but only through the first installation disk. It is also VERY slow and the internet doesn't work anymore (worked immediately after install).

Specs
Dell Dimension 2350
P4 2GHz
768MB RAM
Dual Boot SUSE(~11GB)/WindowsXP(~40GB)
ATI Radeon 9200 PCI

disregard the /sbin/lilo thing. unless you changed it 9.3 uses grub. boot into it with the first disk and go to the console. login in as root and type 'mkinitrd -f ', and a 'SuSEconfig' and an 'ldconfig' just for giggles.

I try to put in 'mkinitrd -f' and it responds:
Unknown option: -f
Try mkinitrd -h

just enter it without the -f

Still didn't help, I got the same error message after reboot. :(

i'm torn. the " segmentation violation at 0xffffe420 " bit make me think you should power off and pull the memory sticks and clean the contacts with rubbing alcohol. the fact that you just updated the kernel, leads me to rolling back to the kernel on your disc's and waiting until they release the next kernel update.

you could start the install process again, and at some point early on it will give the option to " repair installed system " . that will check for missing or damaged files, and may well install the old kernel.

Actually, come to think about it I got the same error before updating the system. After the first disc installed it reboots, it booted off the HD and I got that error. I thought it was my faught at the time for not having it just run off the disc (which I eventually did). It ran the update AFTER I ran it off the disc again (at which point it should of ran off the HD)

I wanted to note, I'm getting these errors when booting off the disc regarding the internet problem (possibly connected to the boot problem?)


FATAL: module ip_tables not found
FATAL: module ip_conntrack not found
FATAL: module ip_net_ftp not found
FATAL: module ip6table_filter not found
FATAL: module ip6table_mangle not found
FATAL: module ip_tables not found
iptables.v.1.3.1: can't initialize iptables table filter: iptables who? (do you need to insmod?)

----repeats----

Perhaps iptables on your kernel needs to be updated

Okay, I tried running a repair and it did nothing to fix the problem. I'm going to run a memory test and see what I get.

Linux does not like my computer, I've tried around 4 distros and nothing worked!

I ran the memory check last night (3 times) and it found no errors. I don't understand what could be wrong! I've looked up the error on google and I still can't find a solution.

the plug and play bios setting used to cause problems, the newer kernels seem to handle it better. you may try setting that to 'no' if not already.

i had a netgear nic that was sharing an irq with the sound card that caused me similar grief once. have a look at the the bios settings make sure nothing is sharing with the sound or net card. you may have to move cards to different slots.

having a card in the first pci slot next to the agp slot can cause problems on some motherboards.