Grub Error Collection [Part 8] [POST GRUB QUESTIONS HERE!]

[desultory]

Are you certain that /boot/kernel-2.6.22-gentoo-r8 and /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz exist and are regular files? The error indicates that a file which grub was attempting to use was not a regular file, being instead a directory, symbolic link, pipe or the like.

[abra]

Thanks for all the work that's been done, and members posting here. It really, really helps !
I have a PC that has 2 SAS drives and 2 SATA drives that boot off a LSI controller. It was a bear to get grub right, but it's finally is working, but strangely:
When the PC boots, the "Grub" screen doesn't really come up; something flashes by there really quick and then the screen's blank for a few seconds.
Then the system is starting, but the video is all blurry, like I can barely make out a few words and guess at some phrases.
After it hits dhcp, it magically clears up, or close to that. The video becomes perfectly clear.
I've had to recompile the kernel once after reading the reason that the VFS: Panic msgs are usually caused by. I have the Intel ICH chipset, and the LSI controller, and most of them (drivers) were set to be made as modules. I changed that, and now the PC boots up, but in that strange way mentioned.
BTW, the drive that the system is on is the second SAS drive, 18GB, SDB. Grub looks kinda like:

root (hd1,0)
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/sdb3

The system just has sdb1,2,3 for the boot, swap, root partitions.

Should anything related to the "livecd" or "/mnt/gentoo" be taken out of MTAB ?
Thanks !

[NeddySeagoon]

abra,

You don't have the timeout statement in your grub.conf, or its set to 0.

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timeout 30

gives you 30 seconds to choose a kernel from the menu.

Blurry startup screens (grub menus) can be caused by the splashimage line being incorrect. Comment it out to test.
If the grub splash screen is ok and it goes wrong after the kernel loads, its possible that your default framebuffer settings (if you use framebuffer) are not suitable for your display.

You will need a non zero timeout statement to test

[hookooekoo]

Are you certain that /boot/kernel-2.6.22-gentoo-r8 and /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz exist and are regular files? The error indicates that a file which grub was attempting to use was not a regular file, being instead a directory, symbolic link, pipe or the like.

It seems fine to me?? Am I wrong? I would prefer not to start over

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livecd boot # ls -la
total 2950
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root    1024 Oct 10 08:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root    4096 Oct 11 02:33 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root       0 Apr 16 15:39 .keep
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root       1 Oct 10 06:51 boot -> .
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    1024 Oct 11 02:53 grub
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2988776 Oct 10 10:13 kernel-2.6.22-gentoo-r8
drwx------  2 root root   12288 Oct 10 03:56 lost+found

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livecd grub # ls -la
total 435
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   1024 Oct 11 02:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root   1024 Oct 10 08:53 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     45 Oct 11 02:53 device.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   7616 Oct 11 02:53 e2fs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   7488 Oct 11 02:53 fat_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   6720 Oct 11 02:53 ffs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    836 Oct 10 09:13 grub.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   1842 Oct 11 02:53 grub.conf.sample
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   6752 Oct 11 02:53 iso9660_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   8192 Oct 11 02:53 jfs_stage1_5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      9 Oct 10 08:57 menu.lst -> grub.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   6880 Oct 11 02:53 minix_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   9280 Oct 11 02:53 reiserfs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  33856 Oct 11 02:53 splash.xpm.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    512 Oct 11 02:53 stage1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 105500 Oct 11 02:53 stage2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 105500 Oct 10 08:57 stage2.old
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 105500 Oct 11 02:53 stage2_eltorito
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   7072 Oct 11 02:53 ufs2_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   6304 Oct 11 02:53 vstafs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   8904 Oct 11 02:53 xfs_stage1_5

[jasiu85]

Hey there,

Here's another GRUB question:

I'm trying to install Gentoo on an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and Asus P5K motherboard. Unfortunately I don't have a CD drive. I wanted to create a bootable usb stick and i ran into following problems:

1) I first tried to port MinimalCD to the USB stick (can't use LiveCD because my pendrive is too small), but then kernel complains that it can't mount VFAT.
2) So I took the kernel from LiveCD, but again, it didn't mount VFAT. I could do that manually, but after that I can't resume the booting process.
3) I tried to use extlinux instead of syslinux to switch from VFAT to EXT2, but the bootloader seems to freeze.
4) I tried to create a bootable USB using GRUB.

And here we go: GRUB freezes and all it outputs to the screen are letters "GRUB". What is going on? My previous attempts show that _some_ bootloaders can boot _some_ kernels, but why not GRUB? And why there is no error reported by GRUB? I searched the Web, but noone described such behavior.

Regards,

Mike

[brow27]

Ok, I just installed Gentoo on a slightly older Xeon (P4-based one I think) with SCSI hard drives. It's been a long time since I've used Gentoo, and I'm far from a Linux guru, but it did work the last time I installed it (with ide drives). The SCSI hard drive is sda, and I have it set as sda1 as boot, sda2 as swap, and sda3 as the root. When I boot, I get this:

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Root-NFS: No NFS server available, giving up.
VFS: Unable to mount root fs via NFS, trying floppy.
VFS: Insert root floppy and press ENTER

end_request: I/O error, dev fd0-, sector 0
VFS: cannot open root device "sda3" or unknown-block(2,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option; her are the available partitions: 
0200                 4  fd0 (driver?)
1600          58536  hdc drvier: ide-cdrom
1640      4194302  hdd drvier: ide-cdrom

I'm not sure if this is a problem with not having scsi set up right in the kernel (I made sure SCSI support was turned on) or if it's some sort of grub problem

I BELIEVE I set up my grub.conf like this:

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default 0
timeout 10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.22-r8
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.22-gentoo-r8 root=/dev/sda3

Help, Please!

[NeddySeagoon]

brow27,

It looks very much like your SCSI driver is missing from the kernel. After failing to mount /dev/sda3 as root, the kernel looked everywhere it could, including the network (NFS) and your floppy drive. unknown-block (2,0).

You do no need to start over. Follow these instructions to get back into the chroot as if you had never left it and rebuild and reinstall your kernel. If you don't know what options you need, run lspci from the liveCD and post any SCSI/SATA/IDE/Raid related lines, or the whole thing if its easier.

[brow27]

Thanks so much for the help. I had a suspicion it was SCSI driver related, though I tried to select everything I needed when doing kernel config the first time. The chroot guide was very helpful, I just did that and am now compiling with genkernel, because I'm feeling to lazy atm to figure the scsi stuff. Guess if I have further trouble, I'll post em in the appropriate place (being that grub wasn't really the problem).

[meeneque]

Hello everybody.

I'm getting this error while trying to boot Gentoo with this setup

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/dev/hda - 80GB Primary Master ATA
/dev/hdc - 200GB Secondary Master ATA

and these are partitioned like that

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/dev/hda1 Windows XP NTFS
/dev/hda2 FAT32
/dev/hda3 NTFS

/dev/hdc1 ext2  /boot
/dev/hdc2 NTFS
/dev/hdc3 swap
/dev/hdc4 reiserfs /

I know that it's a bit messy on /dev/hdc but i had to use old Win partitions (I need the data on them).

my grub.conf is

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default 0
timeout 10

title=Gentoo
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/kernel root=/dev/hdc4

title=Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I've installed grub manually with

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grub> root (hd1,0)
grub> setup (hd0)

But it still gives me error 5. I checked the disks with few partitioning tools in Windows and neither of them see any problem with partition table.
I also tried to change booting order in BIOS and installing with setup(hd1) but it doesn't help.

Maybe you guys can find some workaround.

[bluepass]

If your /boot partition is actually on on hdc1, then you should use:

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root (hd2,0)

[meeneque]

Hi, it was so, so, so obvious (as always)
The second drive was set into CHS mode instead of LBA, and it made grub confused.
Now it works beautifully (off course I've spent all the day trying to find the solution).

If your /boot partition is actually on on hdc1, then you should use:

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root (hd2,0)

As i stated before i have just two HDs and the second one is /dev/hdc
Thx anyway.

[Phoenix76]

This is my first time trying to install Gentoo. I have read the documentation several times, but I still need to ask for some help. I really would appreciate any help anyone could give me. I used Gentoo on a friend's PC, and I loved it. I really want to have it on my PC. I think my post is in the right section of the forum but I apologize if it isn't.

I have an AMD Athlon 64 dual core, and I am using the 2007 installation CD. I already tried to install Gentoo with the automatic kernel installer (genkernel), and I got all the way to the part where I'm supposed to unmount everything, take the CD out, and reboot. When I rebooted though, I got an "Error 15." So I rebooted and checked my configuration again.

Here is what my partitions are:
Name Flags Part. Type FS Type Size(MB)
hda1 boot Primary ext3 25
hda2 Primary swap 512
hda3 Primary ReiserFS 160000

When I boot from the CD, I type:
#swapon /dev/hda2
# mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo
# mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot
# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
# env-update
# source /etc/profile
# export PS1="(chroot) $PS1"
(Is this the correct procedure?)

Next I type:
# cd /mnt/gentoo

Here is what is in my /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf contains:

#These settings were set by the catalyst build script that automatically built this stage.
#Please consult /etc/make/conf.example for a more detailed example.
CFLAGS="-02 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
#This should not be changed unless you know exactly what you are doing.
#You should probably be using a different stage, instead.
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"

Here is the result of entering the command # ls -l /usr/src/linux :
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Nov 4 17:50 /usr/src/linux -> linux-2.6.22-gentoo-r9

My prompt looks like this now:
(chroot) livecd boot#

and when I type the ls command, it displays these files:
System.map-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.22.-gentoo-r9
bzImage
initramfs--genkernel-x86_64-2.6.22.-gentoo-r9
lost+found
boot
grub
kernel-genkernel--x86_64-2.6.22.-gentoo-r9

When I type "ls /boot/kernel*" into the terminal, it shows me "/boot/kernel-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.22-gentoo-r9"

Here are the contents of /etc/fstab:

/dev/hda1 /boot ext3 noauto,noatime 1 2
/dev/hda3 / reiserfs noatime 0 1
/dev/hda2 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto noauto 0 0

shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0

Here are the contents of /boot/grub/grub.conf :

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title= Gentoo Linux 2.6.19-r9
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-amd64-2.6.19-gentoo-r9 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/hda3 udev initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-amd64-2.6.19-gentoo-r9

If anyone spots any errors in my configuration, I would greatly appreciate any help you could offer. Thanks in advance!

[NeddySeagoon]

Phoenix76,

Welcome to Gentoo.

Error 15 means grub cannot find a file it needs. look at your ls /boot. It contains

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kernel-genkernel--x86_64-2.6.22.-gentoo-r9 
initramfs--genkernel-x86_64-2.6.22.-gentoo-r9 

which should be loaded by grub. Your grub.conf contains

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kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-amd64-2.6.19-gentoo-r9 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/hda3 udev 
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-amd64-2.6.19-gentoo-r9 

This is because the handbook was written using the kernel version provided on the CD while you have a later kernel version. Thats good but it means you must adjust what the handbook tells you to put in grub.conf to allow for that.

boot the CD, mount your hda1 at /mnt/gentoo, so you can edit your grub.conf, which will be at /mnt/gentoo/grub/grub.conf and fix the kernel and initrd version numbers.

[Phoenix76]

Oh wow, I guess that would cause a problem, huh! Thanks so much for your help. I'll try to fix this tonight. Thanks much!

[slaterson]

i just installed amd64 from the minimal livecd and i can't boot into my new install.

grub auto-completion does NOT work during setup (with x86 it worked), thats the first oddity.

here is my config and what i have tried... i'm dual booting windows xp and linux. my root partition is /dev/sda8, boot is /dev/sda6, swap is /dev/sda7. i am using the windows boot manager first, where i select gentoo which in turn starts grub.

i setup grub manually by running grub in my chroot during installation. i used 'root (hd0,5)', 'setup (hd0,5)' and then copying the boot sector using 'dd if=/dev/sda6 of=gentoo.lnx bs=512 count=1'. i copy the gentoo.lnx file to my c: drive in windows and configure boot.ini, of course.

when i boot and select gentoo from the windows boot manager it just shows a blank screen. very odd, i just installed amd64 after removing x86 gentoo, which was working perfectly and setup the using the same method above. any clues?

[NeddySeagoon]

slaterson,

So, it boots the NTLDR, you select Gentoo, then you get a blank screen instead of the grub menu and splash screen.

Some things to check. As you have a separate /boot partition, you must have the recursive symbolic link in /boot the shows as

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boot -> .  

Is your grub splashimage line correct ?
Comment it out for testing. No splashimage is ok but strange things happen if the file is not found and not always Error 15.

Can you type the booting instructions after the screen goes blank ?
Being able to see what you type shows something is alive, even if booting fails.

Is your

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menu.lst -> /boot/grub/grub.conf

symlink missing?
Thats a lower case letter 'l' not numeral '1'

[slaterson]

thanks. i actually got it to boot, it was late last night and i was tired when i had the problem, when i re-setup grub it worked like a charm.

thanks a lot for the reply!

[nenuphar87]

please, help me ... or i''m sorry, if ere this question has been answer ...

i install windows xp, after Gentoo, but i install windows again on same place as first,
and it rewrite MBR WITH loader, fortunately i save copy grub.conf,
now boot windows, no grub, no linux
pls, how install or repair it, i'm beginner and speak very badly English, please simply

Thanks very much, nenuphar87

[NeddySeagoon]

nenuphar87,

Both grub and NTLDR use space outside of the filesystems on your hard drive.
They both use the same space so only ome may be installed at a time.
As you say, installing Windows has removed grub from the MBR, however, you Gentoo install is fully intact, including your grub.conf. You just cannot get to it.

To recover, follow this guide when you are back inside the chroot, repeat the steps you used to install grub to the MBR. If you used the installer the first time, the manual steps are documented here
That page is available in languages other than English

[Spidey]

I've already compiled GRUB and installed it in my machine.

The first time I did it, I forgot to mount my boot partition, mas it installed OK.

After installing Gentoo, I've managed to boot correctly (I've got a Error 15 message that was caused by the savedefault feature, don't know why but removing it did the trick) and now I'm using a full feature AMD64 Gentoo box.

The problem started when I remembered that I've got a boot partition, and I didn't mounted it. The first thing I did was mounting it and recompiling the kernel.
Everything went ok. Then I unmerged grub and emerged it again (now in the correct /boot, the mounted one).

Confused by the dillema of being able to mount a partition in a non-empty folder, I've umounted the /boot to check the root partition /boot. To my surprise, it was full with grub and old kernels.

Without any fears, I did a "rm -Rf /boot/*" and deleted everythin in there. I've mounted my boot partition again, in the same folder, just to check that the REAL files were there. And they are.


The question is. Now that my grub is still faulty, 'cause of the ERROR 15 message, I want to re-emerge it and re-install it, but I can't! The emerge process fails unexpectably.

Let us take a look at the messages.

First, the error itself:

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SpideyHomePC spidey # emerge -av grub

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild  N    ] sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3  USE="-custom-cflags -netboot -static" 0 kB

Total: 1 package (1 new), Size of downloads: 0 kB

Would you like to merge these packages? [Yes/No]
>>> Verifying ebuild Manifests...

>>> Emerging (1 of 1) sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3 to /
 * grub-0.97-patches-1.4.tar.bz2 MD5 RMD160 SHA1 SHA256 size ;-) ...                                                                                                                                        [ ok ]
 * grub-0.97.tar.gz MD5 RMD160 SHA1 SHA256 size ;-) ...                                                                                                                                                     [ ok ]
 * splash.xpm.gz MD5 RMD160 SHA1 SHA256 size ;-) ...                                                                                                                                                        [ ok ]
>>> Creating Manifest for /usr/portage/sys-boot/grub
  digest.assumed                11
   digest-grub-0.92-r1::grub-0.92-gentoo-0.2.tar.bz2
   digest-grub-0.92-r1::grub-0.92.tar.gz
   digest-grub-0.94-r1::grub-0.94-gentoo-0.1.tar.bz2
   digest-grub-0.94-r1::grub-0.94.tar.gz
   digest-grub-0.96-r1::grub-0.96-r1-gentoo-0.1.tar.bz2
   digest-grub-0.96-r1::grub-0.96.tar.gz
   digest-grub-0.96-r2::grub-0.96-r2-gentoo-0.1.tar.bz2
   digest-grub-0.96-r2::grub-0.96.tar.gz
   digest-grub-0.96-r3::grub-0.96-patches-1.0.tar.bz2
   digest-grub-0.96-r3::grub-0.96.tar.gz
   digest-grub-0.97::grub-0.97-patches-1.0.tar.bz2
   digest-grub-0.97-r2::grub-0.97-patches-1.2.tar.bz2
   digest-grub-1.95::grub-1.95.tar.gz
 * checking ebuild checksums ;-) ...                                                                                                                                                                        [ ok ]
 * checking auxfile checksums ;-) ...                                                                                                                                                                       [ ok ]
 * checking miscfile checksums ;-) ...                                                                                                                                                                      [ ok ]
 * checking grub-0.97.tar.gz ;-) ...                                                                                                                                                                        [ ok ]
 * checking splash.xpm.gz ;-) ...                                                                                                                                                                           [ ok ]
 * checking grub-0.97-patches-1.4.tar.bz2 ;-) ...                                                                                                                                                           [ ok ]
>>> Unpacking source...
>>> Unpacking grub-0.97.tar.gz to /var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3/work
>>> Unpacking splash.xpm.gz to /var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3/work
>>> Unpacking grub-0.97-patches-1.4.tar.bz2 to /var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3/work
 * Applying various patches (bugfixes/updates) ...
 *   001_all_grub-0.95.20040823-splash.patch ...                                                                                                                                                            [ ok ]
 *   003_all_grub-0.97-example-rescue-shell.patch ...                                                                                                                                                       [ ok ]
 *   005_all_grub-0.96-PIC.patch ...                                                                                                                                                                        [ ok ]
 *   008_all_grub-0.97-AM_PROG_AS.patch ...                                                                                                                                                                 [ ok ]
 *   010_all_grub-0.96-bounced-checks.patch ...                                                                                                                                                             [ ok ]
 *   015_all_grub-0.96-unsigned-addresses.patch ...                                                                                                                                                         [ ok ]
 *   020_all_grub-0.97-i2o-raid.patch ...                                                                                                                                                                   [ ok ]
 *   021_all_grub-0.97-grub-special_device_names.patch ...                                                                                                                                                  [ ok ]
 *   040_all_grub-0.96-nxstack.patch ...                                                                                                                                                                    [ ok ]
 *   060_all_grub-0.96-netboot-pic.patch ...                                                                                                                                                                [ ok ]
 *   070_all_grub-0.97-initrd_max_address.patch ...                                                                                                                                                         [ ok ]
 *   080_all_grub-0.97-geometry-26kernel.patch ...                                                                                                                                                          [ ok ]
 *   090_all_grub-0.97-intelmac.patch ...                                                                                                                                                                   [ ok ]
 *   100_all_grub-0.97-splashimage-example.patch ...                                                                                                                                                        [ ok ]
 *   110_all_grub-0.97-ptable-fix.patch ...                                                                                                                                                                 [ ok ]
 *   500_all_grub-0.97-netboot-gcc4.patch ...                                                                                                                                                               [ ok ]
 * Done with patching
 * Running eautoreconf in '/var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3/work/grub-0.97' ...
 * Running aclocal ...                                                                                                                                                                                      [ ok ]
 * Running autoconf ...                                                                                                                                                                                     [ ok ]
 * Running autoheader ...                                                                                                                                                                                   [ ok ]
 * Running automake --add-missing --copy ...                                                                                                                                                                [ ok ]
>>> Source unpacked.
>>> Compiling source in /var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3/work/grub-0.97 ...
 * econf: updating grub-0.97/config.guess with /usr/share/gnuconfig/config.guess
 * econf: updating grub-0.97/config.sub with /usr/share/gnuconfig/config.sub
./configure --prefix=/usr --host=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var/lib --libdir=/lib --datadir=/usr/lib/grub --exec-prefix=/ --disable-auto-linux-mem-opt --build=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking build system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no
checking for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
checking for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc... (cached) x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... configure: error: cannot run C compiled programs.
If you meant to cross compile, use `--host'.
See `config.log' for more details.

!!! Please attach the following file when filing a report to bugs.gentoo.org:
!!! /var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3/work/grub-0.97/config.log
 *
 * ERROR: sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3 failed.
 * Call stack:
 *             ebuild.sh, line 1701:  Called dyn_compile
 *             ebuild.sh, line 1039:  Called qa_call 'src_compile'
 *             ebuild.sh, line   44:  Called src_compile
 *   grub-0.97-r3.ebuild, line   85:  Called econf '--libdir=/lib' '--datadir=/usr/lib/grub' '--exec-prefix=/' '--disable-auto-linux-mem-opt'
 *             ebuild.sh, line  638:  Called die
 * The specific snippet of code:
 *                      die "econf failed"
 *  The die message:
 *   econf failed
 *
 * If you need support, post the topmost build error, and the call stack if relevant.
 * A complete build log is located at '/var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3/temp/build.log'.
 *

Now my emerge --info:

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SpideyHomePC spidey # emerge --info
Portage 2.1.3.19 (default-linux/amd64/2007.0/desktop, gcc-4.1.1, glibc-2.7-r0, 2.6.23-gentoo-r2 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.23-gentoo-r2 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
Timestamp of tree: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 03:30:01 +0000
ccache version 2.4 [enabled]
app-shells/bash:     3.2_p17-r1
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.1.2-r1
dev-lang/python:     2.4.3-r4, 2.5.1-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r7
sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.10-r5
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.18.1-r2
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61-r1
sys-devel/automake:  1.7.9-r1, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10
sys-devel/binutils:  2.18-r1
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.24
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.23-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -msse3"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -msse3"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="ccache digest distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo"
LANG="en_US"
LINGUAS="en pt_BR"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --filter=H_**/files/digest-*"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="1pcmcia 3dnow 3dnowext X a52 aac aalib acl acpi allegro alsa amd64 amr apache2 asf avi bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts bluetooth bzip2 bzlib cairo cdr cli cracklib crypt css cups dbus divx divx4linux dts dvb dvd dvdnav dvdr dvdread eds emboss emerald encode esd evo exif fam ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb fortran ftp fuse gdbm gif glitz gmp gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal hardened highlight i8x0 iconv icq imlib isdnlog java javascript jingle joystick jpeg jpeg2k kde kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility kerberos libg++ libwww lirc logitech-mouse lua mad matroska midi mikmod mime mmx mmxext mozbranding mp3 mpeg mplayer msn mudflap mysql ncurses net nls nocd nptl nptlonly nsplugin nvidia ogg opengl openmp pam pcre pda pdf pdflib perl php png ppds pppd python qt qt3 qt3support qt4 quicktime rar rdesktop readline realmedia reflection sdl session spell spl sse sse2 ssl svg symlink tcpd texteffect tga theora tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb v4l v4l2 vcd vorbis wifi wmf wmp x264 xine xml xorg xv xvid xvmc yahoo zlib" ALSA_CARDS="intel8x0" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en pt_BR" LIRC_DEVICES="pixelview_pro" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia"
Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY

Since its an emerge error I won't post my /etc/fstab or fdisk -l.
I've seen that I don't have a devices.map file, maybe that's causing the ERROR 15.

But first I need to solve the emerge error. It's obviously not a GRUB ebuild error, since it's worked for me with the exact same /etc/make.conf before.

[NeddySeagoon]

Spidey,

A few things.
Grub builds a 32 bit binary. Thats ok if you have a multilib install, which from you profile I believe you do.
Can you try with grub-static, which should build in a pure 64 bit environment.

When you emerge grub, it installs to your /boot and as you have discovered, you have two places called /boot on your system.
When you install grub to the MBR, so you can boot a part of grub, the stage 1 and stage 1.5 for the filesystem on the partition holding grub is written to the MBR, (and some spare space following) which is outside of any filesystem.

The install process modifies this code to tell it where to find the rest of grub (stage 2).

When you moved the contents of /boot from one partition to another, you did not reinstall grub to the MBR, so it continues to look for stage 2 in the old location and fails - hence Error 15.

You don't need to emerge grub to fix this. you should find all the stage files in /lib/grub and the grub binary at /sbin/grub

[Spidey]

Actually, as I said, the Error 15 was caused by the savedefault command, don't know why yet. I'm pretty sure of this, since I just remove savedefault from windows or gentoo boot command list and I can boot normally.

I've fixed the emerge error (don't know how, anyway), cleaned the root /boot folder and emerged grub. It automatically mounted my boot partition (as described in /etc/fstab) and sent its file to /grub folder correctly. I, again, installed grub, without errors, but the Error 15 keeps showing up.

Some questions, thought.

1) In grub CLI, root (hd0,0) means that /dev/hda1 (or sda1) is the boot partition (where grub stages 2 and 3 are present) and setup (hd0) indicates that /dev/hda is the HD to write the MBR. Is that true?

2) In grub CLI while booting (or in grub.conf/menu.lst), root (hd0,0) means what? System root partition? I'm asking because I'm booting Gentoo using this script:

Code: Select all

root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz ...

if I use the (hd0,5) "alias" in the kernel line AND the root command specifies de BOOT (not the root as I stated before), then the root command is useless?


I'm confused with all root confusion. Even after beeing able to boot, I can't make it boot clean (ERROR 15).

[NeddySeagoon]

Spidey,

1) In grub CLI, root (hd0,0) means that /dev/hda1 (or sda1) is the boot partition (where grub stages 2 and 3 are present) and setup (hd0) indicates that /dev/hda is the HD to write the MBR. Is that true?

Not exactly. (hd0) is the first hard drive discovered by the BIOS. What this means is far from being clear or consistant.
Some BIOSs discover drives in the same order always. Others always number the boot drive hd(0).
Another complication is USB storage devices that come and go. Grub knows nothing of how drives are physically attached and relies on the BIOS for numbering. Keep in "mind discovered by the BIOS" and that not all BIOSes are equal.

The root (hdx,y) statement is grubspeak for the location of the files grub needs to load.
In your fragment

Code: Select all

root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz ...

you would find that

Code: Select all

root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz ...

would work as well, provided you do not load an initrd from (hd0,0).
The root (hd0,0) statement is not required at all. You can prefix all the filenames you need to load with
(hdX,y) as in your kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz example

The root=/dev/... is kernelspeak for the root of the filesystem. The use of the same word to mean different things confuses users at first but the context makes it clear.

You should never use the generic kernel filenames bzImage or vmlinuz in /boot. Descriptive names are much better and less lilkey to be overwritten when you update the kernel. You just add the new kernel with a new descriptive name and have a choice at boot time.
Sometimes you do get a kernel config wrong and need a backup to sort out the mess.

This link may help. Its a browsable Gentoo install

[Spidey]

Oh thank you, I've understand everything now.
The BIOS recognition part I already knew, the problem was the root part.

Anyways, thank you again.

edit: Ah, btw, I don't see the purpose on having multiple kernel options at boot if not for some testing/benchmarking. I always point grub to vmlinuz and, if something goes wrong, I just correct, at boot time, to vmlinuz.old or another older kernel. Isn't that OK?

[NeddySeagoon]

Spidey,

Thats fine as long as you do't have an accident with your only working kernel.