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173 lines
8.9 KiB
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<!Converted with LaTeX2HTML 95.1 (Fri Jan 20 1995) by Nikos Drakos (nikos@cbl.leeds.ac.uk), CBLU, University of Leeds >
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<TITLE>2.5.1 Problems with booting the installation media</TITLE>
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<meta name="description" value="2.5.1 Problems with booting the installation media">
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<BR> <HR><A NAME=tex2html2742 HREF="node83.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="next" SRC="next_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME=tex2html2740 HREF="node81.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="up" SRC="up_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME=tex2html2734 HREF="node81.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="previous" SRC="previous_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME=tex2html2744 HREF="node1.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="contents" SRC="contents_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME=tex2html2745 HREF="node250.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="index" SRC="index_motif.gif"></A> <BR>
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<B> Next:</B> <A NAME=tex2html2743 HREF="node83.html">2.5.2 Hardware problems</A>
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<B>Up:</B> <A NAME=tex2html2741 HREF="node81.html">2.5 Running Into Trouble</A>
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<B> Previous:</B> <A NAME=tex2html2735 HREF="node81.html">2.5 Running Into Trouble</A>
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<BR> <HR> <P>
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<H2><A NAME=SECTION00451000000000000000>2.5.1 Problems with booting the installation media</A></H2>
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<P>
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<A NAME=secinstallprobsbooting> </A>
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<P>
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<A NAME=1544> </A>
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<A NAME=1545> </A>
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<P>
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When attempting to boot the installation media for the first time, you
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may encounter a number of problems. These are listed below.
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Note that the following problems are <em>not</em> related to booting your
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newly-installed Linux system. See
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Section <A HREF="node88.html#secinstallprobspostinstall">2.5.4</A>
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for information on these kinds of pitfalls.
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<P>
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<UL><LI> <b>Floppy or media error when attempting to boot.</b>
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<P>
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The most popular
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cause for this kind of problem is a corrupt boot floppy. Either the
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floppy is physically damaged, in which case you should re-create the
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disk with a <em>brand new</em> floppy, or the data on the floppy is bad,
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in which case you should verify that you downloaded and transferred the
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data to the floppy correctly. In many cases, simply re-creating the boot
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floppy will solve your problems. Retrace your steps and try again.
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<P>
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If you received your boot floppy from a mail order vendor or some other
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distributor, instead of downloading and creating it yourself, contact the
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distributor and ask for a new boot floppy---but only after verifying that
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this is indeed the problem.
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<P>
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<LI> <b>System ``hangs'' during boot or after booting.</b>
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<P>
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After the installation
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media boots, you will see a number of messages from the kernel itself,
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indicating which devices were detected and configured. After this, you will
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usually be presented with a login prompt, allowing you to proceed with
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installation (some distributions instead drop you right into an installation
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program of some kind). The system may appear to ``hang'' during several of
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these steps. During all of these steps, be patient; loading
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software from floppy is very slow. In many cases, the system has not
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hung at all, but is merely taking a long time. Verify that there is no
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drive or system activity for at least several minutes before assuming that
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the system is hung.
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<OL><A NAME=1553> </A>
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<LI> After booting from the <tt>LILO</tt> prompt, the system must load the
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kernel image from floppy. This may take several seconds; you will know
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that things are going well if the floppy drive light is still on.
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<P>
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<LI> While the kernel boots, SCSI devices must be probed for. If you do
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not have any SCSI devices installed, the system will ``hang'' for up to 15
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seconds while the SCSI probe continues; this usually occurs after the line
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<P><TT> lp_init: lp1 exists (0), using polling driver
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<P></TT>
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appears on your screen.
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<P>
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<LI> After the kernel is finished booting, control is transferred to the
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system bootup files on the floppy. Finally, you will be presented with
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a login prompt, or be dropped into an installation program. If you are
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presented with a login prompt such as
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<P><TT> Linux login:
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<P></TT>
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you should then login (usually as <tt>root</tt> or <tt>install</tt>---this varies
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with each distribution). After entering the username, the system may
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pause for 20 seconds or more while the installation program or shell is
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being loaded from floppy. Again, the floppy drive light should be on.
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Don't assume that the system is hung.
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<P>
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</OL>
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<P>
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Any of the above items may be the source of your problem. However,
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it is possible that
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the system actually may ``hang'' while booting, which can be due
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to several causes. First of all, you may not have enough available RAM
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to boot the installation media. (See the following item for information
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on disabling the ramdisk to free up memory.)
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<P>
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The cause of many system hangs is hardware incompatibility.
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Section <A HREF="node30.html#secintrohardware">1.8</A> in the last chapter presented an
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overview of
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supported hardware under Linux. Even if your hardware is supported, you may
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run into problems with incompatible hardware configurations which
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are causing the system to hang. See
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Section <A HREF="node83.html#secinstallprobshardware">2.5.2</A>, below, for a discussion of
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hardware incompatibilities.
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<P>
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<LI> <b>System reports out of memory errors while attempting to
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boot or install the software.</b>
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<P>
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This item
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deals with the amount of RAM that you have available. On systems
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with 4 megabytes of RAM or less, you may run into trouble booting the
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installation media or installing the software itself. This is because
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many distributions use a ``ramdisk'', which is a filesystem loaded
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directly into RAM, for operations while using the installation media.
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The entire image of the installation boot floppy, for example, may be
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loaded into a ramdisk, which may require more than a megabyte of RAM.
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<P>
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The solution to this problem is to disable the ramdisk option when
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booting the install media. Each release has a different procedure for
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doing this; on the SLS release, for example, you type ``<tt>floppy</tt>''
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at the LILO prompt when booting the <tt>a1</tt> disk.
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See your distribution's documentation for details.
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<P>
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You may not see an ``out of memory'' error when attempting to boot or install
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the software; instead, the system may unexpectedly hang, or
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fail to boot. If your system hangs, and none of the
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explanations in the previous section seem to be the cause, try disabling
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the ramdisk.
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<P>
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Keep in mind that Linux itself requires at least 2 megabytes of RAM to
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run at all; some distributions of Linux require 4 megabytes or more.
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<P>
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<LI> <b>The system reports an error such as ``<tt>permission denied</tt>''
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or ``<tt>file not found</tt>'' while booting.</b>
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<P>
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This is an indication that your installation bootup media is corrupt. If you
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attempt to boot from the installation media (and you're sure that you're
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doing everything correctly), you should not see any errors such as this.
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Contact the distributor of your Linux software and find out about the problem,
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and perhaps obtain another copy of the boot media if necessary. If you
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downloaded the bootup disk yourself, try re-creating the bootup disk, and
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see if this solves your problem.
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<P>
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<LI> <b>The system reports the error
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``<tt>VFS: Unable to mount root</tt>'' when booting.</b>
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<P>
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This error message means that the root filesystem (found on the boot
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media itself), could not be found. This means that either your boot
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media is corrupt in some way, or that you are
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not booting the system correctly.
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<P>
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For example, many CD-ROM distributions require that you have the CD-ROM
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in the drive when booting. Also be sure that the CD-ROM drive is on, and
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check for any activity. It's also possible that the system is not locating
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your CD-ROM drive at boot time; see
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Section <A HREF="node83.html#secinstallprobshardware">2.5.2</A> for more information.
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<P>
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If you're sure that you are booting the system correctly, then your
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bootup media may indeed be corrupt. This is a very uncommon problem, so
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try other solutions before attempting to use another boot floppy or tape.
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<P>
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</UL>
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<P>
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<A NAME=1572> </A>
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<A NAME=1573> </A>
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<P>
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<BR> <HR><A NAME=tex2html2742 HREF="node83.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="next" SRC="next_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME=tex2html2740 HREF="node81.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="up" SRC="up_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME=tex2html2734 HREF="node81.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="previous" SRC="previous_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME=tex2html2744 HREF="node1.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="contents" SRC="contents_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME=tex2html2745 HREF="node250.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="index" SRC="index_motif.gif"></A> <BR>
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<B> Next:</B> <A NAME=tex2html2743 HREF="node83.html">2.5.2 Hardware problems</A>
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<B>Up:</B> <A NAME=tex2html2741 HREF="node81.html">2.5 Running Into Trouble</A>
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<B> Previous:</B> <A NAME=tex2html2735 HREF="node81.html">2.5 Running Into Trouble</A>
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<BR> <HR> <P>
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<BR> <HR>
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<P><ADDRESS>
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<I>Matt Welsh <BR>
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mdw@sunsite.unc.edu</I>
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</ADDRESS>
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