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gemmell n00b
Joined: 31 Aug 2002 Posts: 32 Location: Canberra Australia
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Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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spadearcher wrote: | Erik and Gemmell: Thanks for the quick response. I in fact this last time had done everything you both just advised me to do, and still couldn"t find my work after rebooting. Everthing goes into RAM and is apparently not retained anywhere on the hard drive, that I can make our.
While Huston's (and Bogart's) version of the Falcon is a classic, Huston (who also wrote the screenplay) did a great job of adapting the book, which itself is recognized as a literary classic. (Dashiell Hammet was the author.) If you have any interest in this, you must read the novel (which is all over in paperback). It of course is a precurser to Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe novels which followed the Falcon book by several years. |
Ok try this then:
> mkdir /mnt/gentoo
> mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/gentoo
> cd /mnt/gentoo
> touch ATestFile.txt
> ls
Just to check that the file is actually there (and that you are in /mnt/gentoo)
Then
> cd /
> umount /mnt/gentoo
reboot the computer
When you come back in,
> mkdir /mnt/gentoo
> mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/gentoo
> ls /mnt/gentoo
Is the file still there? It damn well should be!
As someone said earlier you probably untared the stage3 to the wrong spot. I can't think of anything else that could go wrong. |
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erik258 Advocate
Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 2650 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
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Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 3:01 am Post subject: |
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Quote: | (The Maltese Falcon byplay is one thing that stopped me from reporting this thread as a dupe. :wink:) |
also, that other thread is horribly annoying. i especiallly got a kick from the guy gruffly complaining about how gentoo marketed this cd that was no good and how horrible it was (beginning of 2nd page). he made it sound like he went to the store and bought a copy for $300 and it came with a little sticker that said "Perfect! Guaranteed" on it. ; )
sounds like a lot of people got hit by a nasty bug on that one ( at least one or two of them deserved it ) . but i do not think that is the problem here for a few reasons. for one, the partitions aren't being resized or anything. for another, the graphical installer is not being used in this case and is not even available, since it's Damn Small Linux.
I wish i was sitting at this computer! argh.
but i clearly cannot have that (unless you want to give me an ssh login to your dsl livecd environment ; ) ) so let's do the next best thing. I would like yout to do it all again (please?) and be very careful to follow each command in the install guide exactly, but to save a script of the entire process with the script
watch: i run script. do some commands, and then exit from script, and my console session is saved to a file called typescript. i put the part that is the script file (i catted it to the screen) in red for clarity.
Quote: | dan@pascal ~ $ script
Script started, file is typescript
dan@pascal ~ $ mount
/dev/sda3 on / type reiserfs (rw,noatime,notail)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,nosuid)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
shm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,devmode=0664,devgid=85)
dan@pascal ~ $ umount /
umount: only root can unmount /dev/sda3 from /
dan@pascal ~ $ exit
Script done, file is typescript
dan@pascal ~ $ cat typescript
Script started on Tue Dec 5 20:58:18 2006
dan@pascal ~ $ mount
/dev/sda3 on / type reiserfs (rw,noatime,notail)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,nosuid)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
shm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,devmode=0664,devgid=85)
dan@pascal ~ $ umount /
umount: only root can unmount /dev/sda3 from /
dan@pascal ~ $ exit
Script done on Tue Dec 5 20:58:27 2006
dan@pascal ~ $ ls -l typescript
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 619 Dec 5 20:58 typescript
dan@pascal ~ $ |
this will enable us to see the whole process; the mounting, the tar extraction, the chroot, and so on. if you are making a mistake, we can catch it. if not ... perhaps we can still solve this problem! _________________ Configuring a Firewall? Try my iptables configuration
LinuxCommando.com is my blog for linux-related scraps and tidbits. Stop by for a visit! |
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 6:06 am Post subject: |
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Gemmell and Erik: Okay, here's the current status -- which I certainly find interesting, even if you're getting bored by this stage.
First, in following Gemmell's most recent instructions I got no farther than "touch ATestFile.txt" and "ls" when I came to find that all my previous work files had now mysteriously reappeared (although you won't necessarily agree with me that it's all that mysterious). Obviously, the mounting of the /dev/sda6 to the reconstituted /mnt/gentoo directory uncovered what I had been unable to locate by my previous other file searching means.
Now, what I chose to do, not being certain how much of my previous effort was contained in these now revealed files, I started from scratch using the Gentoo quickinstall instructions. And lo and behold, everything seemed to work fine and I got as far as the section 2.32 concerning rebooting. Per the instructions, I unmounted everything, ran the reboot command, removed by DSL live CD from the drawer when it opened -- and then nothing more happened. No subsequent booting into Gentoo!
Fortunately, perhaps, when I brought the DSL live CD back up, and mounted /dev/sda6 to mnt/gentoo, all the files for the Gentoo OS seemed to still be there. But how in hell to I install the OS on my hard drive in such a way as to be able to use it.
I did notice that, in the instructions, I was required to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file, which I did along the lines of their instructions, but inserting sda6 where appropriate, which has worked fine for booting my other distros loaded on my hard drive. I even copied that menu.lst file to the master boot loader on my hard drive which contains the opening menu for choosing my other distros, but it wasn't recognized when I chose it from the initial opening menu list. I suspect though that the menu.lst file I edited is incomplete. For example, it doesn't have an "initrd" component. What do your menu.lst files contain?
Anyway, here I am having compiled a Gentoo operating system, and I don't know how to give it an appropriate home. It can only live (and then only partially) through a live CD. It's a "spectre" of an operating system!
Any further thoughts would be appreciated. |
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erik258 Advocate
Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 2650 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
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Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:51 am Post subject: |
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your gentoo is just sleeping ; )
but unfortunately the 3 minutes i have before I need to go open a coffeeshop (grumble) are sadly not going to be enough for me to walk you through grub setup.
btw, grub setup is way easier than lilo ; )
if menu.1st (grub.conf?) is incomplete the computer will set up a nice screen that says 'grub loading please wait' but when you select your desired os to boot it will give an error message. since you can edit the boot options from grub, that works ok. you can fix the problem and boot into your os.
however if nothing happens you probably forgot to install grub on the MBR of your hard drive.
reread the section on starting up grub, and dont forget to run grub-install or (i recommend) grub from the command line in your gentoo chroot! (actually you don't have to be chrooted for this step, but DSL probably didn't supply grub ; )
best of luck , and no, i'm not bored at all ;) I have other posts to attend to .
here's my grub.conf:
Quote: |
dan@pascal ~ $ su
Password:
pascal dan # mount /boot
pascal dan # cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
default 0
timeout 1
title=Gentoo amd64
root (hd0,1)
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/sda3
title=Windows XP on Sata!
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1 |
_________________ Configuring a Firewall? Try my iptables configuration
LinuxCommando.com is my blog for linux-related scraps and tidbits. Stop by for a visit! |
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cwr Veteran
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969
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Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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The last time I installed Gentoo (on a very old, slow machine) I actually installed
DSL _first_. I partitioned the disk with space for Gentoo, then added a small
(500MB) partition at the end of the disk for DSL.
DSL installed Grub, so when I'd installed Gentoo I just had to add the necessary
command line to Grub's menu.conf. (The Gentoo install manual has a pretty
complete chapter on Grub).
Will |
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks guys. Believe it or not, thanks to your assistance I'm now a bit more encouraged that I'm possibly not in such dire straits as I'd imagined. However, I have to take a breather from this and get on with my other (sadly neglected?) duties (I'm a lawyer!) and come back to the grub problem a bit later. Thanks again to all of you. |
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:31 pm Post subject: |
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Further to my earlier message today (or yesterday, depending on where you reside), I think I'm making some progress -- at least in possibly identifying the cource of the problem. In tinkering a bit with my /dev/sda1 boot menu, in which I had earlier added the boot information from my Gentoo menu.lst (grub.conf) file without success, through further tinkering I've now managed to get a more responsive hard drive effort at booting Gentoo, without actually accomplishing the booting. (Sorry for the convoluted wording.) I now get the message:
"VFS: Cannot open root device "sda6" or unknown-block (0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option."
Is this of any help to us (me)?
Also, per CWR's suggestion, I attempted to install my DSL live CD on the unused petition sda7 of my harddrive, but without success. The installation process seemed to proceed OK, but at the end, when it came to executing the reboot command, the same thing happened as with my Gentoo effort. The CD drawer opened, I removed the CD as instructed then hit enter, but no rebooting subsequently occurred. |
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gemmell n00b
Joined: 31 Aug 2002 Posts: 32 Location: Canberra Australia
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Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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spadearcher wrote: | Further to my earlier message today (or yesterday, depending on where you reside), I think I'm making some progress -- at least in possibly identifying the cource of the problem. In tinkering a bit with my /dev/sda1 boot menu, in which I had earlier added the boot information from my Gentoo menu.lst (grub.conf) file without success, through further tinkering I've now managed to get a more responsive hard drive effort at booting Gentoo, without actually accomplishing the booting. (Sorry for the convoluted wording.) I now get the message:
"VFS: Cannot open root device "sda6" or unknown-block (0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option."
Is this of any help to us (me)?
Also, per CWR's suggestion, I attempted to install my DSL live CD on the unused petition sda7 of my harddrive, but without success. The installation process seemed to proceed OK, but at the end, when it came to executing the reboot command, the same thing happened as with my Gentoo effort. The CD drawer opened, I removed the CD as instructed then hit enter, but no rebooting subsequently occurred. |
Make sure you specifcy /dev/sda6 and not just sda6 in the grub.conf
so
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/sda6
instead of
kernel /bzImage root=sda6 |
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erik258 Advocate
Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 2650 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
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Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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spadearcher,
don't worry. i can (usually) get a machine working, and this forum should help us overcome the fact that you're not me ; ) besides, gemmell has this well in hand. his suggestion is just what you need.
Quote: |
(Sorry for the convoluted wording.) |
convolusions are welcome in anything i read, that's for sure. bring it on! perhaps next post i'll try to retain the value of my offering whilst keeping the word count in a particularly bad proportion with my sentance count. _________________ Configuring a Firewall? Try my iptables configuration
LinuxCommando.com is my blog for linux-related scraps and tidbits. Stop by for a visit! |
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:57 am Post subject: |
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All right, now here's the latest:
My menu.lst does identify root=/dev/sda6, so that's possibly not the problem.
My kernel phrase that precedes it is /boot/kernel, as that what was designated in my installation. (I tried bxImage, but that didn't work at all. /boot/kernel got me much farther along in the booting process.)
(By the way, I've gone back once again to reinstall following the quickinstall instructions, just to make certain that I hadn't overlooked anything previously.)
I installed grub, but did encounter something curious and possibly of interest:
When installing grub, my command grub> root (hd0,0) came back with a comment "Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83" However, it still let me proceed with "setup".
When I came again to rebooting, the same thing happened after removing my DSL live cd, closing the tray and pressing enter -- Nothing!
When going into my main boot-up file menu, which contained booting instructions for all my distros, including now Gentoo, and when choosing Gentoo, everything again seems to be proceeding smoothly in the booting process, except I eventually get the same message as I reported before, but added to it was a further comment: "Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0).
I'm now satisfied that my hard drive does indeed contain a Gentoo installation, but which I can't successfully boot (for what that's worth). |
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cwr Veteran
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 2:59 am Post subject: |
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Sorry that DSL didn't work; I've taken a look at my setup, and booted the CDROM and it all looks as if
it ought to be OK. However, it's a while since I actually loaded it and I don't have a spare machine to
experiment on. (The DSL machine _is_ the spare machine...) . I used the full "Debian Type HD"
install, as described in "Getting started with DSL". Further, once you've booted the DSL CDROM
you can open a root shell and run grub as an ordinary command, which permits you to configure
and install grub it in whichever partition is appropriate.
Anyhow, it certainly sounds as if you have Gentoo (and DSL for that matter) loaded; it's just a matter
of configuring grub to find them. The Gentoo installation docs have a chapter on boot loaders and
grub, and it's well worth reading. Grub has some odd tricks, such as indexing partitions from 0 not 1,
and good documentation (the man page is limited) can prevent a lot of confusion.
Given a system with /dev/hda8 as /boot, and /dev/hda11 as /root, to install a bootloader I run grub
and enter the following commands at the prompt (note that grub is very fussy about the presence
and absence of spaces):
grub> root (hd0,7)
grub> setup (hd0,7)
grub> quit
The relevant parts of grub.conf then become:
default 0
title Gentoo Linux Current
root (hd0,7)
kernel /kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.15-gentoo-r5 init=/linuxrc real_root=/dev/hda11
initrd /initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.15-gentoo-r5
This is slightly odd, since the boot partition /dev/hda8 is booted by another bootloader; normally the
boot partition would be eg: /dev/hda2, with /dev/hda1 reserved for some sort of Windows OS which
can't live anywhere else. Grub would then boot either Linux or Windows depending.
Hope this helps - Will |
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gemmell n00b
Joined: 31 Aug 2002 Posts: 32 Location: Canberra Australia
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 3:06 am Post subject: |
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spadearcher wrote: | All right, now here's the latest:
My menu.lst does identify root=/dev/sda6, so that's possibly not the problem.
My kernel phrase that precedes it is /boot/kernel, as that what was designated in my installation. (I tried bxImage, but that didn't work at all. /boot/kernel got me much farther along in the booting process.)
(By the way, I've gone back once again to reinstall following the quickinstall instructions, just to make certain that I hadn't overlooked anything previously.)
I installed grub, but did encounter something curious and possibly of interest:
When installing grub, my command grub> root (hd0,0) came back with a comment "Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83" However, it still let me proceed with "setup".
When I came again to rebooting, the same thing happened after removing my DSL live cd, closing the tray and pressing enter -- Nothing!
When going into my main boot-up file menu, which contained booting instructions for all my distros, including now Gentoo, and when choosing Gentoo, everything again seems to be proceeding smoothly in the booting process, except I eventually get the same message as I reported before, but added to it was a further comment: "Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0).
I'm now satisfied that my hard drive does indeed contain a Gentoo installation, but which I can't successfully boot (for what that's worth). |
What DO you have in your grub.conf? It sounds to me like you've got your root and boot set to the same place, is that the way you formatted it? I always have a seperate boot partition. |
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:28 am Post subject: |
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CWR- Thanks for your explication of what you've done. I will have to study it further, to see how well it applies to my situation.
Gemmell: You're right. I do have my boot and root in the same partition, by intention. For my multi-booting I am using an excellent article in issue eight of TUX called "Give Multiple Distros the Boot." You may care to Google it and download it. Essentially, you install your distros in separate petitions including the boot grubbing (which eventually goes into the MBR), and then you copy the boot instructions to a separate petition (SDA1) which contains the menu which loads all the distros. I don't think I'm explaining it very well, but the article might be of interest to you. Anyway, both my Ubuntu and SASE are loaded that way (root and boot in same petition) and everything works fine. Maybe I can't use this TUX system with Gentoo, and will have to carve out a separate boot petition for it. What do you think? Thanks much again for your continued (and I hope continuing) interest and assistance. |
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cwr Veteran
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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AFAIK you can play it either way, but I think you'd find life a lot easier with
a separate boot partition; booting different kernels, or different OSes, is
then just a matter of editing the grub.conf file. I generally use a 64MB or
128MB /dev/hda2 (which must be ext2fs) for that purpose, and once grub
is installed and booting on that partition that's it. No re-install of grub is
needed, and adding or removing OSes can be done by simple editing.
Good Luck - Will |
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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CWR (Will?): I want to make certain I understand correctly what you're recommending. Isn't that what I already have, a separate boot partition (sda1) which contains the boot insturctions for all the distros on my hard drive, into which I have copied into each of the distro grub.conf (menu.lst) files? But I have to have access to each of those grub.conf files to extract this data, which I believe I have already done during installation of Gentoo. Or are you recommending establishment of yet another boot partition for use during the initial distro installation process (which wasn't apparently necessary during my Ubuntu and SUSE installs)? I think I see light at the end of the tunnel. What (very specifically) do you advise me to do now? Many, many thanks. |
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gemmell n00b
Joined: 31 Aug 2002 Posts: 32 Location: Canberra Australia
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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spadearcher wrote: | CWR (Will?): I want to make certain I understand correctly what you're recommending. Isn't that what I already have, a separate boot partition (sda1) which contains the boot insturctions for all the distros on my hard drive, into which I have copied into each of the distro grub.conf (menu.lst) files? But I have to have access to each of those grub.conf files to extract this data, which I believe I have already done during installation of Gentoo. Or are you recommending establishment of yet another boot partition for use during the initial distro installation process (which wasn't apparently necessary during my Ubuntu and SUSE installs)? I think I see light at the end of the tunnel. What (very specifically) do you advise me to do now? Many, many thanks. |
You should have 1 boot partition with 1 grub.conf. Your grub.conf can reference as many kernels and distributions as it likes.
So you can have
title Gentoo Linux Current
root (hd0,7)
kernel /kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.15-gentoo-r5 init=/linuxrc real_root=/dev/hda11
initrd /initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.15-gentoo-r5
title Mandrake
root (hd0,
kernel /kernel-mandrake-2.6.15 root=/dev/hda12
So the same grub can boot different kernels for different distributions and mount a different root. |
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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The grub.conf is what I believe already have at sda1, from which menu I can choose which distro to boot up. So I now need to work over Gentoo to install its grub boot in a separate petition from the root (which is currently at sda6). Is that a right undersranding on my part? Then, as with my other distos, I copy the relevant instructions from the Gentoo boot to the grub.conf, to apear on the menu with the others. |
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erik258 Advocate
Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 2650 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:45 am Post subject: |
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no, no. with grub you need exactly 1 boot partition to boot as many kernels as you like. you are already using GRUB to boot your other distros, right?
one source of this confusion might be that menu.1st and grub.conf are two names for the grub menu; i think grub.conf is a text file that the gentoo ebuild chooses to link menu.1st to; i believe many distros set up menu.1st and never have a grub.conf. this is conjecture.
i also do not know whether it is possible to use multiple files designed in a hierarchy in grub. in that case you might have multiple grub files on the boot partition.
i also do not know whether it is possible to load grub on a partition's MBR with grub. in that case you might have multiple grub files on the partitions for each distro!
however, i do know that it should be possible to boot the kernel image of your gentoo installation from any make.conf, as long as the section in your grub configuration file that points to that kernel and any additional necessary information is properly written.
i would very much like to see the file that contains the gentoo option. the one from which you select gentoo. and i would like to know - that is the only boot menu you ever see, right? and you only have one grub configuration file (whatever it be called) right?
in fact, if you have any problems at all, or are even feeling confused, i would like to see the contents of your universal boot partition (not the root partition of gentoo)
my theory, everyone, is that the problem is caused by the multiplicity of boot 'partitions', not the need for another. the boot partition needs to house a copy of the kernel and that copy must be specified the real root of the filesystem with the root=/dev/sda6 (in this case) kernel boot option (from grub). you need more if you are using an initrd.
did you compile your own kernel or use genkernel? _________________ Configuring a Firewall? Try my iptables configuration
LinuxCommando.com is my blog for linux-related scraps and tidbits. Stop by for a visit! |
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:09 am Post subject: |
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Erik: Regarding your last query, in using the quickinstall instructions,I do not recall that I was given the option of using genkernel. Therefore I had to compile my own kernel, whose listed options were so intimidating for me that I just hit the enter button and allowed (presumably) the default selections to be loaded. There were no error messages generated at the time by this (cowardly?) act.
I am presently away from home on business (legal) for the next 24 hours, so I can't go back into Gentoo and try to make sense of and appropriately implement what you're all telling me. So, feel free to attend to other, more important aspects of your lives (and I do hope you have some) until I can cope and report back. Thanks again to all of you. |
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sonicbhoc Veteran
Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Posts: 1805 Location: In front of the computer screen
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:36 am Post subject: |
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erik258 wrote: |
one source of this confusion might be that menu.1st and grub.conf are two names for the grub menu; i think grub.conf is a text file that the gentoo ebuild chooses to link menu.1st to; i believe many distros set up menu.1st and never have a grub.conf. this is conjecture.
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I believe it's called menu.lst. that's an l, not a 1. I do that a lot too. And, most distros don't have a grub.conf, but some do other than Gentoo.
erik258 wrote: |
i also do not know whether it is possible to load grub on a partition's MBR with grub. in that case you might have multiple grub files on the partitions for each distro!
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Yes, and then you can chainload them. Just like what you would do with Windows, but instead you'd be chainloading another grub instead of Windows.
spadearcher wrote: |
Erik: Regarding your last query, in using the quickinstall instructions,I do not recall that I was given the option of using genkernel. Therefore I had to compile my own kernel, whose listed options were so intimidating for me that I just hit the enter button and allowed (presumably) the default selections to be loaded. There were no error messages generated at the time by this (cowardly?) act. |
Yeah, that kernel won't boot. You have to set up all of the drivers for your devices in it. That kernel is just going to keep crapping out on boot, or if you're lucky load and then your computer will move extremely slow. There really aren't any default options. You have to go in and configure things or your system will be quite dead. |
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erik258 Advocate
Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 2650 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:48 am Post subject: |
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yeah, that's the problem all right. surely that kernel is unlikely to boot. sorry, i didn't realize the install instructions don't talk about genkernel. i've never used it and definitlely have the kernel compilation steps down by heart ; )
but it's good that you need to set up your kernel though. don't worry; it's much easier than you think. as my (new) signature line implies, once you can boot, you can compile all the modules you like without having to write a new kernel.
by the way, you should be able to do this on /dev/sda6 with a chroot on any of your distros, not being required to boot from a livecd at all. especially since you needn't do any partition table work, and unless your other distros are incapable of supplying a chroot or mounting /dev/sda6, you'll not need to use a livecd hereafter. unless you want to.
make menuconfig will bring up a nice menu you can navigate with arrow keys. go through the options one by one and
- if you think you possibly can, just leave it out for now.
- if you know you need it or are going to use it all the time (IDE etc.), you may as well just compile it in.
- if you notice it in the output of lspci you may as well just compile it in. because you have that hardware anyway.
- if you have no idea what it is, read the help, and at the bottom it'll probably give you a suggestion if unsure.
- if you aren't advised there, you could consider asking us. or, you could look it up online. but you can also probably safely just turn it off, if they didn't tell you it was vitally important it's probably not.
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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Okay, you guys. I now realize that my "cowardly" behavior must be put behind me and I need to venture forth with increased fortitude in attempting to set up my kernel. From what you describe, my having failed previously to do so was probably why Gentoo wouldn't reboot when reaching the end of the installation process. The fact that it wouldn't do so I believe pointed to the problem lying within the installation itself and not having to do with the efficacy of my sda1 boot menu installation. After all, I did get a partial booting up of Gentoo when choosing the Gentoo menu item from my boot menu. The failure for the booting up to complete I believe is further indication of the initially faulty (or incomplete) basic installation. When I return from my out-of-town trip tonight, I'll give it another try, along the lines you recommend. Again, thanks.
ADDED QUERY: If I want to continue my Gentoo install manipulation from my Ubuntu distribution (for example) rather than through my DSL live CD, what is the exact chroot command I enter to gain access to sda6? |
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cwr Veteran
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry for the delay in replying, but Gemell seems to have found copy of my grub.conf
somewhere and posted it anyway... he's exactly right.
Perhaps a look at an overall disk layout might be helpful. I'd typically use the following:
/dev/hda1 - 6GB primary, Windows of some sort
/dev/hda2 - 128MB primary, linux /boot (must be ext2fs)
/dev/hda5 - 1G extended, linux swap
/dev/hda6 - 6GB extended, Gentoo /root
/dev/hda7 - 4GB extended, Gentoo /usr/portage
/dev/hda8 - 2GB extended, alternative Linux /root (boot for testing and maintenance).
These sizes can be varied according to whim or local conditions, but are a reasonable
starting point. (You may well prefer less swap space, for instance - I use it for a
software suspend image).
Once grub has been installed in hda2 and that primary partition marked active then a
reboot will bring up the grub menu, which can boot either Windows or one of the Linuxes.
Each Linux will have a different /root partition, but both will keep their kernel images in
hda2 (obviously under different names...).
I usually let Windows build its own partition, and then install all the rest from Linux with
cfdisk, which lets me see pretty clearly what I'm doing.
Looking at your current state, I don't think I'd try installing Gentoo until I'd got a working
DSL booting, since that will prove that the whole boot chain is correct, and only the Gentoo
kernel will be left to be debugged. DSL doesn't seem to use a separate /boot by default,
but keeps the /boot directory as part of the /root filesystem. That doesn't matter (except
to give a useful backup). You can still boot it from a separate partition by copying the
contents of DSL's /boot directory across to _your_ boot partition and running grub.
I've seen both menu.lst (NB. LST not 1ST) and grub.conf used as grub menu files. grub.conf
seems to be the current usage, but several grub installations have provided menu.lst as a link
to grub.conf.
Somewhere on the Gentoo CD is the configuration file for the standard "all you can eat"
kernel which the LiveCD uses; I don't have the CD by me at the moment, but I'll look up
and post the filename. That's the kernel you want to boot first, since having booted the
LiveCD you know it works. Then you can start tuning with genkernel.
Hope this helps - Will |
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spadearcher Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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Will: Re the following:
Looking at your current state, I don't think I'd try installing Gentoo until I'd got a working
DSL booting, since that will prove that the whole boot chain is correct, and only the Gentoo
kernel will be left to be debugged. DSL doesn't seem to use a separate /boot by default,
but keeps the /boot directory as part of the /root filesystem. That doesn't matter (except
to give a useful backup). You can still boot it from a separate partition by copying the
contents of DSL's /boot directory across to _your_ boot partition and running grub.
You may recall that I did try to install DSL on my hard drive, which seemed to proceed OK, except it wouldn't reboot at the end. (I am also pleased to note your observation that DSL doesn't use a separate /boot by default, but keeps the /boot directory as part of the /root file system, which is what I've been trying to do with Gentoo (and is apparently the case with my installations of Ubuntu and SASE).) The fact that it wouldn't reboot upon completeion of the installation process (the same as with Gentoo) convinces me that the fault, again, is not with my separate combined grub petition at sda1.
Somewhere on the Gentoo CD is the configuration file for the standard "all you can eat"
kernel which the LiveCD uses; I don't have the CD by me at the moment, but I'll look up
and post the filename. That's the kernel you want to boot first, since having booted the
LiveCD you know it works. Then you can start tuning with genkernel.
I would appreciate receiving this -- with possibly more specific instructions concerning what to do with this file once I copy it from the LiveCD.
Thanks again. Jim |
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cwr Veteran
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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I rebooted the 2006.0 Installer LiveCD, and rummaged around.
(I'd expect 2006.1 to be the same - I just don't have a copy.)
The /boot directory contains all the grub files, and the
Gentoo kernel, initramfs, and kernel-config files. The easiest
approach would be to copy this lot across to the /boot partition
on your hard drive, and then run grub (as previously discussed)
to configure the system.
Building a new kernel is a different problem. The LiveCD has its
kernel configuration file, kernel-config-whatever, in /etc/kernels
but it has no kernel sources.
I think all you need is gentoo-sources and genkernel. Once you've
downloaded and emerged these you can copy the LiveCD kernel
configuration file to /usr/src/linux/.config and run genkernel
to get a kernel which should be identical to that of the LiveCD.
If that boots ok, then you can re-run genkernel to drop the bits of
the kernel you can't use or don't need. The first kernel build takes
30min. or so on a fast machine (2500 bogomips), and then a few minutes
for a rebuild after changes. On a slow machine (250 bogomips) it can
take several hours, and I generally run it overnight.
It's best to keep a working kernel (eg. the original LiveCD kernel) in
/boot with an entry in grub's menu.conf to boot it. That way there's
always something to fall back on when disaster strikes. You need to
rename the backup kernel, since genkernel by default mounts the /boot
partition from /etc/fstab and copies the new kernel over to it.
I can never remember the right arguments for genkernel, so I've stuck
them all in a shell script in /usr/src/linux: once I've got a working
configuration I back up the .config file so that I always have something
to go back to. The script is:
#!/bin/sh
# Build a Gentoo kernel.
# Clear the screen.
reset
# Note the start and finish times.
echo Build started `date` >Build.time
genkernel --no-clean --save-config --menuconfig all
echo Build ended `date` >>Build.time
# eof
Hope this helps - Will |
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