boot concerns with the default setup
Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: boot concerns with the default setup
started by: oznozz
Posted by oznozz on Dec. 12 2006,22:28
I have a lot of faith that everyone working on DSL, Debian and KNOPPIX is interested in making Linux LiveCDs as easy to use as possible, but I've noticed some strange behaviors while experimenting with booting DSL3.1.First, a question : is DSL setup by default to boot as reliably as possible on whatever system is used?
I am currently working on customizing a dsl for use in a university environment with a large number of non-homogenous machines, and I would rather not have to type in boot commands specific to the machine I am in front of when I sit down.
DSL works for me reliably in its default configuration on an Acer laptop, a custom AMD Sempron box and a windows box, but DSL is ornery on a second custom built box. I'd like to customize the DSL cd to be as robust for booting with the default configuration as possible.
The system is an AMD Sempron 2800+ with 1 GB DDR3200 RAM on an ECS K8M800-M2 and it runs Fedora Core 4 just fine. The most notable difference between the machine that fails is that it is new enough to have a serial ATA controller, which I have heard causes problems. Changing the BIOS settings related to serial ATA, so that it would "look like" parallel ATA didn't fix anything.
When I start the system with the default boot settings, it loads linux24 and minirt24.gz, clears the screen and then freezes with no output. Both failsafe and expert boot well, although they require minor configuration of the X system.
I hunted around in the newcd/boot/isolinux directory and found isolinux.cfg because I wanted to know what different options were associated with the different boot options. In there I found that there are several different strings of options, so I began typing whole boot strings into the boot prompt starting with "linux24" or "userdef".
First of all, userdef and linux24 when followed by the same strings of boot options (I tried this several times since I don't trust my typing or my eyes) produce different output. I am naively assuming that what typing nothing into the boot: prompt actually does is execute something like typing in "linux24 [list of default options]". The only difference I see, if my naive assumption is correct, between "linux24" and "userdef" is the long string of ### signs that follows the APPEND tag for the LABEL userdef.
Second, the string :
{
boot: userdef ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init vga=normal initrd=minirt24.gz
}
works and it also works if "lang=us", "BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix", "apm=power-off" or "nomce" are included although minor configuration of the X system is required
At several points, I managed to get the boot process to fail such that it spammed the screen with the error :
{
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -l binfmt-464c, errno = 8
}
Anyone have any ideas/care to explain the fire I'm playing with?
Thanks,
oznozz
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 13 2006,06:00
I'd say dsl by default is pretty good (knoppix detection technology yay), although certain types of hardware needs user interaction in order to work.sata support is not included newer releases of DSL. (see v2.1b, etc. or dsl-n)
when you get a blank screen, do using vga or fb or disabling power-option bootcodes help? What video/monitor hardware are we lookin at?
About your binfmt-464c problem, google says something along the lines of: disable it, or build it into the kernel. Not sure what it's for.
Posted by oznozz on Dec. 13 2006,18:37
I was pretty sure that DSL didn't support SATA because it's kernel 2.4.26 and one of the sites I read said that for SATA you need at least 2.4.27. I haven't messed with the kernel, so whatever behavior it's exhibiting is the behavior of the base DSL kernel.I have no need for it to detect SATA hardware, I just don't want it to fail as a result of its presence, and I don't see a clear explanation of how to get the system to simply ignore the SATA hardware (if that's what is causing the kmod error), or even a way to confirm my suspicion that the SATA hardware is the source of the error (all I know is that it works without fail when there's no SATA).
I'd be perfectly satisfied with video, network, PATA-IDE without support for things like scsi, raid, pcmcia, SATA, sound, etc since I simply need a fast-n-light system for use on machines that I don't own.
The motherboard has onboard video/audio/LAN (S3 Graphics UniChrome Pro IGP/Realtek ALC655/VIA VT6103L), which all must conform to some kind of standard if the system boots in failsafe mode (right?
). The monitor is an nvision LCD that works with generic drivers on Debian and Fedora Core 4 and everything else that's ever been plugged into it.