Subject: Booting Linux for first time

From: micm <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 16:01:12 +0000 (GMT)

OK,

I've now managed to format my hda3 partition as ext2 (see the thread
mknod and mke2fs).

This involved completely blanking the HD to remove an old ICS partition
table which was confising the Linux kernel.

So I copied the RPMs onto the partition, copied base and instimage.

Ran the installer.  When asked what I wanted to install, I left all
unchecked (i.e. a bare minimum install).  The installer went through its
install bit (with the bars), asked me which keyboard, mouse I was using
etc.

Got to the message "Could not find kernel" so I followed the suggestion
given somewhere else to do a /mnt/bin/sync.

Right.  So I should now have linux installed.  Now, when I next startup
linux, with
!Linux -bootkernel rpc
I still get asked to insert the Linux root disc.

Surely it should now be able to boot from the hda3?  Do I need to pass
a command line argument to the bootloader or something??

Mike.

-- 
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From: Phil Norman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 14:20:29 +0000 (GMT)

> a command line argument to the bootloader or something??

AFAIK, there is no parameter you can pass to the bootloader which tell it 
where to find the partition.  The only way I know which works on my 
system is, when the 'Enter extra arguments:' comes up, type:
root=/dev/hda3

This will then cause the kernel to boot from whatever partition you 
happend to mention (hda3 in this case).

Since this started to get rather annoying, I hacked my personal copy of 
the bootloader so instead of calling an OS_ReadS (or similar) it branches 
to a routine which copies 'root=/dev/hda3' into the buffer, and then goes 
on from there.  This is cludgy, hacky and horrible, but it works for me.

I think there's some other way of doing it using 'loadmap' and the 
/boot/wotsit file, but I never got round to fiddling with that (esp since 
loadmap doesn't seem to work on my system).

Hope this helps,
Phil

P.S. If you want more information on how loadmap works, 'man loadmap' 
should tell you what you need to know if you have the loadmap RPM installed.

-- 
Phil Norman, mailing from Exeter Uni.
Programs available for download from my web page.
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From: Tom <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 17:04:51 +0000 (GMT)

> loadmap doesn't seem to work on my system).

On my system, if you create a config file /etc/boot.conf (or edit if it's
there) - it should have entries along the lines of :

# Linux 2.0.30
kernel {
  name = "Linux 2.0.30";
  path = "/vmlinux";
  root = "/dev/hda3";
  ramdisk = 0;
  flags = readonly;
};

You then need to run the followind (as root, obviously) :

loadmap -R /dev/hda3 -v -C /etc/boot.conf

This should set up the boot map files such that when you next boot into
Linux you're given the menu of kernels available (using the file above
will result in only one entry called "Linux 2.0.30"). I think that's all
you need to do - this also then makes the !Linux loader work, which is
nice :-).

Hope this helps,

Tom.

--
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http://tmo21.quns.cam.ac.uk/