Ubuntu not booting from LILO
 

Hi there, all

I recently installed ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake (I think) and I enjoyed it lots, but the problem that I had was that I already had slamd64 and a cross-compiled linux-from-scratch system (clfs) installed on various partitions on my sda.

The installation of grub seemed to pick up my clfs install but not my slamd64 one. No problem, I just booted to clfs and re-installed lilo as the bootloader, simply adding an entry for ubuntu in /etc/lilo.conf. Now everything boots fine except ubuntu! It gives me some sort of kernel panic, can't remember exatly what it said and I'll have to reboot to check it again if necessary. I went over the lilo.conf file and it's definitely pointing to the right partition, the right kernel (I have 2 versions installed because I updated all the packages immediately after installing and I tried both - same problem both times.

Does Ubuntu NEED to boot from grub or something? I initially didn't think anything of it, assuming that lilo would work and since I didn't know how to work grub I didn't bother to try it.

Is there a way that I can perhaps use the ubuntu livecd to fix this because I don't really want to reinstall (it'll just overwrite my bootloader again and I'll have wasted the 3 hours that I spent letting it download and install updates), or is there some special way to configure lilo when you use ubuntu?

Thanks in advance
silkenphoenixx

I have booted Ubuntu from lilo, so that should work.
Give us the contents of Ubuntu's grub configuration (menu.lst IIRC), as well as the precise error message you get when booting from lilo.

Um... Ok. As mentioned, I really know nothing about grub, and I tried looking into its documentation yesterday to no avail. Could you point me to its grub configuration files? I didn't fine any /etc/grub.conf like what you get with LILO.

Will post the error message that lilo gives when I get the chance to reboot again and write it down...

Ummm.... Perhaps I should mention that I installed the x86_64 version, for if that makes a difference, but I don't think that it will because all the other distros that I use lilo to boot are also for x86_64.

Grub's files are usually in /boot/ or /boot/grub/, depending on the distro. Not in /etc/.

Ok. Just tried to boot Ubuntu again and here's the result (will post both my grub and lilo files in a little while) :

(Will only post last 3 lines as they seem to be the only ones pertinent)

[ 19.163802] VFS: Cannot open root device "808" or unknown-block (8,8)
[ 19.163859] Please append a correct "root=" boot option
[ 19.163922] kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Cannot open root device "808" or unknown-block (8,8)

I went and checked my lilo.conf and I'm 150% sure that the "root=" option is there and correct.

Ok. Here is my /etc/lilo.conf which is on my /dev/sda5 which is my clfs partition:

Ok... here is what I think is ubuntu's grub config...

File: /boot/grub/menu.lst
[quote]
# menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8)
# grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8),
# grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub
# and /usr/share/doc/grub-doc/.

## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not change this entry to 'saved' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
default 0

## timeout sec
#

I'd say you need to add an initrd= line to your Ubuntu stanza in lilo.

Hmmm... that makes sense. I suppose I just use "initrd=<whatever was in the grub conf file here>" and it should work? I'll try it out as soon as I reboot again and then I'll post the result.

Thanks for the help.

Hello again and thank you! Ubuntu is booting fine now, and now I'm equipped to deal with it if something like this ever happens again. Thanks very much

Regards
silkenphoenixx