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#1 2005-03-23 04:15:26

cdk
Member
Registered: 2005-03-21
Posts: 15

installation and grub

hi m8s!

so i have been trying to install acrch for about 4 days now with no luck. i have made it once into the system after installation only to have it crap out on me.  this is because i had a bad stick of ram giving me errors.  so now i have it all sorted out and i cannot get it to boot.

i have done both ftp and cd installation without problem. i have done fresh installs and i have also re partitioned set new mount points every time i have tried to reinstall. 

my partions are as follows:

/dev/discs/disc0/part1  = /boot  150mb
/dev/discs/disc0/part2  = swap  1500mb
/dev/discs/disc0/part3  = /root  20000mb
/dev/discs/disc1/part1  = /home 30000mb

my menu.lst is:

title  Arch Linux  [/bootvmlinux26]
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/discs/disc0/part3 ro

the error i was getting at fist was "grub error 15"
after i tried to install lilo over it i started getting "grub" scrolling across my screen in an infinite loop.

i think its the MBR. is there a way to flash it or clean it.  this really making me frustrated because i want to use arch so bad.  if anyone has an ideas fire away because i dont want to go back to gentoo and the LONG complies.

cdk

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#2 2005-03-23 08:19:33

scarecrow
Member
From: Greece
Registered: 2004-11-18
Posts: 715

Re: installation and grub

grub doesn't install to MBR cleanly if LILO has been used before.
Simplest way to clean the MBR is booting a win 9X floppy and performing "fdisk/mbr". You might have to repartition after that, in some rare cases.
Is your /boot partition primary and active? 
Finally, after installing and configuring LILO, did you run "/sbin/lilo" or maybe "/sbin/lilo -v" ?

By the way your /boot partition is larger than normal, unless you want to toy with 70 different kernel revisions.


Microshaft delenda est

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#3 2005-03-23 09:11:49

mpie
Member
From: 404 Not found
Registered: 2005-03-06
Posts: 649

Re: installation and grub

cdk wrote:

hi m8s!

so i have been trying to install acrch for about 4 days now with no luck. i have made it once into the system after installation only to have it crap out on me.  this is because i had a bad stick of ram giving me errors.  so now i have it all sorted out and i cannot get it to boot.

i have done both ftp and cd installation without problem. i have done fresh installs and i have also re partitioned set new mount points every time i have tried to reinstall. 

my partions are as follows:

/dev/discs/disc0/part1  = /boot  150mb
/dev/discs/disc0/part2  = swap  1500mb
/dev/discs/disc0/part3  = /root  20000mb
/dev/discs/disc1/part1  = /home 30000mb

my menu.lst is:

title  Arch Linux  [/bootvmlinux26]
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/discs/disc0/part3 ro

the error i was getting at fist was "grub error 15"
after i tried to install lilo over it i started getting "grub" scrolling across my screen in an infinite loop.

i think its the MBR. is there a way to flash it or clean it.  this really making me frustrated because i want to use arch so bad.  if anyone has an ideas fire away because i dont want to go back to gentoo and the LONG complies.

cdk

why root=hd0,0) try without that line in meu.lst.......

or point it ast your root hd0,2...

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#4 2005-03-23 10:26:17

sorcerer
Member
Registered: 2005-02-25
Posts: 18

Re: installation and grub

no, root(hd0,0) point to root where grub is installed, not to the root of the installed systemm.
so this should indeed be the /boot partitition....(hd0,0)

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#5 2005-03-23 10:58:06

mpie
Member
From: 404 Not found
Registered: 2005-03-06
Posts: 649

Re: installation and grub

ok my error dont use a seperate boot partition... sri :oops:

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#6 2005-03-23 14:50:18

eerok
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2005-03-20
Posts: 171

Re: installation and grub

scarecrow wrote:

By the way your /boot partition is larger than normal, unless you want to toy with 70 different kernel revisions.

I think the swap is too big as well -- nowadays it's possible to use no swap at all, but I think 200-500MB is a reasonable amount to keep just in case.

A common size for /boot is 32MB -- this is still plenty of room for more  kernels than anyone is likely to ever need.


noobus in perpetuus

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#7 2005-03-23 16:42:11

skoal
Member
From: Frequent Flyer Underworld
Registered: 2004-03-23
Posts: 612
Website

Re: installation and grub

scarecrow wrote:

grub doesn't install to MBR cleanly if LILO has been used before.

I can't say I've ever heard of that one before. I would think if you:

root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)

the last line will rewrite the MBR on hd0 (hda1). I didn't know that worked any different than 'fdisk /mbr'.

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#8 2005-03-23 19:12:29

scarecrow
Member
From: Greece
Registered: 2004-11-18
Posts: 715

Re: installation and grub

skoal wrote:

I can't say I've ever heard of that one before.

Neither I, actually...  :twisted:  It is the other way round (LILO over GRUB), I mistyped... See here:
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/html … ation.html


Microshaft delenda est

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#9 2005-03-23 20:27:25

Cotton
Member
From: Cornwall, UK
Registered: 2004-09-17
Posts: 568

Re: installation and grub

Boot with a livecd and confirm whether your /boot/grub directory has the reiserfs_stage1_5 (assuming you're using reiser) & stage2 files.

If not you can use the livecd to install grub to the MBR of your hard disk, using the standard commands:

root=(hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda3  ro
setup (hd0)

Come to think of it, I vaguely remember having similar probs with grub (for other reasons) and it turned out that the kernel line should refer to the root partition using the root=/dev/hda3 format rather than /dev/discs/disc0/part3.

Suggest you try editing your current line on boot up before trying the livecd solution.

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#10 2005-03-23 21:42:52

eerok
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2005-03-20
Posts: 171

Re: installation and grub

Cotton wrote:

... the kernel line should refer to the root partition using the root=/dev/hda3 format rather than /dev/discs/disc0/part3.

Not so, here's my working kernel line in grub:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/discs/disc0/part2 ro

noobus in perpetuus

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#11 2005-03-23 22:29:18

cdk
Member
Registered: 2005-03-21
Posts: 15

Re: installation and grub

okay.  changed the root (hd0,0) to point to /boot and still no luck. so i wipped out my vidalinux 1.1 cd and used ti to partition and format my drive. i even let it install everything (forgot to watch it, lol)  then i reinserted the arch 0.7 cd and went through the ftp install (im a freaking pro now that i have tried it seriously about 50 times).  i conf all the files and i need to and then installed lilo cause i just didnt want to mess with grub again.  When i rebooted everything worked and i got into the sytem. from there i was able to install and config xorg and i decided to try enlightenment (which i must say i like so far). 

Well enough said i am actually posting from my arch box right now!  yay! 

i still really dont have any idea why i was having so much trouble but i do understand Linux much much better.  thanks m8s for taking time to reply.

cheers,

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#12 2005-03-23 23:02:07

Cotton
Member
From: Cornwall, UK
Registered: 2004-09-17
Posts: 568

Re: installation and grub

Don't forget to run lilo anytime the kernel gets upgraded or you'll have to boot with a livecd and modify your lilo.conf before you can use your system.

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#13 2005-03-23 23:18:53

cdk
Member
Registered: 2005-03-21
Posts: 15

Re: installation and grub

what do you mean "run" lilo. sorry if this is a stupid question

cheers,

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#14 2005-03-23 23:21:09

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: installation and grub

cdk wrote:

what do you mean "run" lilo. sorry if this is a stupid question

cheers,

whenever you upgrade the kernel, run "lilo" as root, to make sure it picks up kernel changes....

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#15 2005-03-24 00:10:54

cdk
Member
Registered: 2005-03-21
Posts: 15

Re: installation and grub

thx m8!  good to know.

cheers,

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