Arch Linux

ody

Member

From: Manchester, UK

Registered: 2002-08-12

Posts: 216

Website

CD booting

Some people may have problems booting there AL ISO burned CD, if this is the case simply mount the cd on another linux box, stick a floppy in the drive and issue dd if=/mnt/cd/boot/boot.img of=/dev/fd0 this will create a boot floppy for you, dont forget to change the mount point and floppy dev if needed.

Reboot the system (make sure the floppy drive is set to boot first) and when the floppy gets to the lilo stage issue: arch root=/dev/hdb , replace /dev/hdb with the dev of your cdrom.  Then allow it to boot and carry on with the install.

dunbar

Member

From: Central Massachusetts USA

Registered: 2002-08-14

Posts: 106

Re: CD booting

OK, being tired of Mandrakes shenanigans (mdk 8.2), I returned to Arch Linux 0.3.

When booting from the Arch (0.3) install CD, in a brand new LiteOn DVD drive, without any boot parameters I got a kernel panic, something to do with not being able to mount root.

Instead of searching and reviewing all the forum posts for kernel panic (I have seen kernel panic somewhere in this forum, no?), I remembered seeing the post above. I tried it, slightly modified to suit my situation: boot=/dev/hdd.

Booting went fine, installer worked as expected, but during partitioning, I needed to reboot the system to get the partitions I wanted. For the fun of it, during the system reboot, I popped the Arch 0.3 install CD out of the DVD drive and put it into a new (but proven to be troublesome) 40x12x48 BenQ CDRW (/dev/cdrom).

Rebooting the Arch install CD in the CDRW drive, the installer delivered 'abort installation' errors - I've seen and posted these before. Since the install routine hadn't even presented a user menu, I figured nothing had been touched on the hard discs, so one more time I rebooted with the CD still in the CDRW drive, this time using the aforementioned 'ody maneuver' tailored to the CDRW connection: boot=/dev/hdc.

Installation works fine: Arch is installed and configured and I have since configured and brought up XFree86 as well.

I conclude that I have cleared 2 problems with what ody posted. For me, the 'ody maneuver' looks like it the may be the equivalent of a 'swiss army knife' for (at least my own) install problems on the ISO install CD.

Are you getting a device or directory problem during installation? Try it, what's the harm?

Thanks ody! (kudody?)

ody

Member

From: Manchester, UK

Registered: 2002-08-12

Posts: 216

Website

Re: CD booting

heh `ody maneuver', wasnt there a `riker maneuver'.. or was it picard? I dont remeber..

dunbar

Member

From: Central Massachusetts USA

Registered: 2002-08-14

Posts: 106

Re: CD booting

heh `ody maneuver', wasnt there a `riker maneuver'.. or was it picard? I dont remeber..

Jog your memory here.