[RULE] Kernel loading problems (CD-install)

[Richard Kweskin]

On Mon, 1 Sep 2003 15:08:46 +0100 (IST)
danj at netsoc.ucd.ie wrote:

> Quick little update
> 
>     Before anyone (C. David Rigby) goes to any more extraordinary lengths,
> it might be in the intrest of effiency to read this first!
>     I have yet to verify the md5sum on the ISO CD, got a bit of reading to
> do o that one. I have followed a suggestion from Richard Kweskin, and
> I have test booted the CD sucessfully and checked the directories for
> the kernel and found them present.

I presume this was done on the pentium box, not the 486 in question.

>     I feel like an eejit for not realising this sooner, but I've managed
> to acess a command prompt, which might help manual kernel instalation.
> The installation balks when it goes to look for a suitable kernel, but
> it continues on to ask for a login and password.

Do you mean that a slinky-v.0.3.97 install has found the rpm's from the Redhat cd's but is unable to see the kernel rpm on the slinky iso (on the 486?)

> I simply used the the
> boot disk an chose not to run the installation and it started busybox
> command prompt! While I failed to mount the Linux partition file
> system failed with Tom's root-boot and with MuLinux, I had no problem
> mounting it with slinky's command prompt.

This may be because you are trying to mount the linux partition with ext3 and these other distros may not support this.

>     So I now have two questions: 1) where do I find literature on manual
> kernel mounting and 2) since I'll be doing this manually 'outside' the
> installer, do I have to do anything else to ensure that the install is
> completed correctly? I assume this will be different 'cos if I was
> fixing this problem mid-install (by using Alt+F2), once I was done the
> installer would just continue on as normal.... right???

It would be far simpler to manually mount and rpm -ivh the desired kernel package "mid-install" because, having booted from a floppy directly into a shell, (a) rpm may not be available (b) even if it is your "/" or root point is not pointing to the desired partition on the hard drive, and thus rpm will not install your kernel where it should.

Look through our list's archives around the time several messages were posted about Redhat's no longer catering for 486's. Two messages, both authored by Michael Fratoni, separately explain (1) what to do if one has the correct kernel rpm, say already copied to a spare partition on the hard drive, but not the slinky cd, and the slinky install script tries to find the slinky cd and (2) how to deal with the chroot command because otherwise rpm is not going to work.

I humbly admit not remembering all the details now and I think Michael is swamped with "stuff" right now and may not answer for a while.

> Let there be no panic, and if there is to be panic, let it be organised
> panic!
> 
> Toodels!
> Dan
 
Amen Dan

Richard


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