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Hi
im trying to install archlinux on my laptop, but i keep getting kernel panics.
i have to use the boot floppys for ftp install since i dont have a cdrom.
floppy 1 runs without problems. LILO starts and gives me the option of passing arguments to the bootprocess, but i follow the manual and just press enter here and lots of stuff gets printed to my screen... it goes to fast for me to make any sense of it..
then it ask me to insert the root floppy, and so I do, but then nothing works, and i get a kernelpanic
VFS: cannot open root device "200" or 02:00
Please append a coorect "root=" boot option
kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 02:00
*************''
i have searched trough alot of info, but i dont know what this means, so therefor it is a bit difficult knowing how to fix it.
One mailinglist said something about this beeing a trouble with the lack of reiser support in the kernel. I had suse with reiser on my machine, so i ran fdisk from a win98 bootdisk, but this didnt change anything. Grub wasnt removed either... probably because i forgot to pass /mbr as argument when i started fdsisk, but it cant be the problem as LILO has no problems afaik.
then i found another descrition of the problem, which said that 02:00 was the floppy- HOW CAN THIS BE ??? I just loaded the boot-floppy from my floppydrive and i inserted root-floppy into the same drive and pressed enter like it told me to...
my setup is:
toshiba portege 3480ct
pIII 500MHz
192 mb ram
external floppy disc (usb)
external dockiingstation with ethernet +other stuff
im really frustrated now so any hints are appreciated
thanx
soniX
edit:
found something: http://mypenguin.bei.t-online.de/softwa … 490CT.html
but there got to be an easyer way...
after all, suse went in to the same machine with the same usb floppy drive without problems... (but suse is sooooo slow), and has the same ? kernel as arch ; the 2.4.x ...
if anyone could post a link to a site that explaines how to fix this issue, or come up with an argument i can pass to the bootprocess so it will work with the usb floppy, i would be very greatfull
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http://inexo.com.br/~ethy/USB-Floppy-Boot.html
The way Linux kernel is written make it impossible to completely boot and load the disc set sequence from any device that is not under /dev/fd*.
is this a thing i should report to archlinux so they can work out å fix for it ?
soniX
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OK, I'm not familiar with USB storage devices, but the following may at least be worth a try. When LILO boots and gives you the option to pass an additional argument try the following :
root=/dev/sdaThat assumes that your USB floppy is recognized as /dev/sda - you may know better how it is named.
There are also alternative ways of installing Arch (I really should protocol it next time I do it ...). You could boot via a loopback device - that is treat the root image as a device. I once did that following roughly these steps : http://miba.fxnet.hu/crux/loopback-install/ (Arch is inspired/based on Crux - but then again, I remember how I extracted kernels and other images by mounting the floppy images as ramdisks .... hmmm).
Also, if you have Windows, you could try to boot with syslinux and again use the boot image as initrd (not sure if that works).
Also, you can run the Arch installer simply from a running system. That assumes that you have unesd partitions which you want to use for Arch Linux. Note also that you can shrink partitions with resize2fs or resizereiserfs (or however they are named).
Sorry for the extremely terse instructions but I would have to dig through a whole lot of googling myself - or even try it myself .... which I don't feel like ;-) ... but as I hinted : I did similar things myself. I just don't remember the details of installation ...
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thanx for the tips..
i have already tried the root=/dev/sda but it didnt work (there are some issues with installing from sda i think
but i will try the crux thing... i can allways shrink my suse partition and hopefully install arch on it.
and then delete the hole suse partition..
i will give it a try and tell you how it went...
soniX
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