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Rev Author # Line
20 PrashantYadava 1 Help! My Linux won't boot.
10 JohnMcPherson 2
3 !!!Pre-kernel
27 AristotlePagaltzis 4
5 !! <tt>LI</tt> (or similar, on boot)
6
26 JohnMcPherson 7 Lilo is not correctly set up. (For example, issues with old versions of lilo above block 1024 of the disk drive). See LiloErrorCodes.
10 JohnMcPherson 8
27 AristotlePagaltzis 9 !! <tt>Loading Linux.......... Uncompressing the kernel.</tt> (stop)
11 GerwinVanDeSteeg 10
29 IanMcDonald 11 # Are you using an InitialRamDisk - initrd(4)? If so, do you have <tt>CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM</tt> and <tt>CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD</tt> enabled in your kernel?
27 AristotlePagaltzis 12 # The kernel was compiled for a different architecture - for example, it has optimisations for [AMD] chips that don't work on an [Intel] chip, or vice-versa. If you changed the architecture of the kernel config (well, for kernel v 2.4 at least), you ''need'' to do a make clean afterwards, otherwise some object files that should be re-compiled aren't.
25 IanMcDonald 13
27 AristotlePagaltzis 14 !! <tt>GRUB</tt> <blinking cursor>
11 GerwinVanDeSteeg 15
27 AristotlePagaltzis 16 [GRUB] is unable to load its first stage loader, use a rescue disk to start the machine. Reinstall [GRUB]; see the GrubNotes page.
17
18 !! <tt>GRUB loading stage 2</tt>
19
20 If this is the case your [CMOS] battery might have gone flat. They generally last 3-5 years and you lose your hard disk setup often if the battery dies which then causes this problem.
21
22 !! I get the [GRUB] command prompt instead of my menu...
23
24 ...but if I type in <tt>configfile /grub/grub.conf</tt> the menu loads.
26 JohnMcPherson 25
12 GerwinVanDeSteeg 26 This may occur with a Mirrored SoftwareRaid setup. Reconfigure your grub.conf file and remove any reference to a root (*) device.
27 AristotlePagaltzis 27
28 <verbatim>
12 GerwinVanDeSteeg 29 install --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 (hd0,0)/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0,0)/grub/stage2 p /grub/grub.conf
30 install --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 (hd1,0)/grub/stage1 (hd1) (hd1,0)/grub/stage2 p /grub/grub.conf
31 quit
27 AristotlePagaltzis 32 </verbatim>
26 JohnMcPherson 33
27 AristotlePagaltzis 34 NB: This assumes a seperate <tt>/boot</tt> partition
18 UserId 35
27 AristotlePagaltzis 36 ! I'm having the same problem, but I'm not using [RAID] or anything...
10 JohnMcPherson 37
27 AristotlePagaltzis 38 From all the research I've done, it seems like problems of this sort are always caused by <tt>grub.conf</tt> mistakes. Mine seemed to be OK though, but I was still seeing problems. I noticed that when I ran <tt>setup (hd0)</tt> at the [GRUB] prompt, it mentioned a file called <tt>menu.lst</tt>. I renamed <tt>grub.conf</tt> to <tt>menu.lst</tt>, and things are now working! (But you should make a SymLink from <tt>grub.conf</tt> to <tt>menu.lst</tt> instead of renaming.) Apparently there may be multiple default filename possibilities for the [GRUB] menu file.
26 JohnMcPherson 39
27 AristotlePagaltzis 40 !!! During [Kernel] bootup
24 StuartYeates 41
27 AristotlePagaltzis 42 !! <tt>ESR value before enabling vector: 0000002</tt>
24 StuartYeates 43
27 AristotlePagaltzis 44 Various VIA chipset [AMD] Athlon/Duron motherboards (eg KT400, KM266) running kernel 2.4 (e.g. kernel 2.4.21) hang after printing this message. For example, Athlon XP2000+ on an AD77 motherboard (KT400), Athlon XP1800+/XP2400+ on a PC Chips M825L (KM266)). It is caused by [APIC] support in the kernel (not to be confused with [ACPI]). Booting with the <tt>noapic</tt> kernel flag doesn't fix it (although it can make the machine go into an infinite loop printing an error about apic on cpu 0). However, booting with <tt>no__l__apic</tt> kernel flag does in many cases work. Recompiling the kernel without APIC support resolves this. Note that the same motherboards will need the <tt>nolapic</tt> kernel flag to boot Knoppix - otherwise the screen just turns black and the computer hangs.
10 JohnMcPherson 45
27 AristotlePagaltzis 46 !! <tt>ACPI: setting ELCR to 0200 (from 1e20)</tt>
10 JohnMcPherson 47
31 JohnMcPherson 48 My KT400-based motherboard (that used to give the previous error message under older kernels) hangs immediately after printing this message with [Ubuntu] 5.10's default kernel (2.6.12-6). The message just before it is <tt>ACPI: Looking for DSDT in initrd... not found!</tt> Again, adding <tt>nolapic</tt> and <tt>noapic</tt> to the kernel boot command fixes this. Note that if your distribution uses the <tt>quiet</tt> kernel boot flag to hide all those messages then you'll never know that it's the [BIOS]'s buggy [APIC] support at fault. This motherboard is an AD77 flashed with the latest BIOS (2004/11/02) so you will only be able to boot a linux kernel that is compiled or booted without APIC support.
10 JohnMcPherson 49
27 AristotlePagaltzis 50 !! <tt>Warning: unable to open an initial console</tt>
51
52 This is usually caused by a failure to find or mount <tt>/dev</tt> or a bad <tt>/dev</tt> being used. When remastering [Knoppix] this can be cause by failing to preserve the special nature of the device files under <tt>/dev</tt> while building remastering. See the <tt>dev</tt> option of mount(8).
53
54 !!! Starting services
55
56 !! <tt>modprobe - Cannot find module char-major-''##''</tt>
57
58 Devices in [Linux] have major and minor numbers (unless you use the newer DevFs). Devices need to be implemented by the [Kernel], either compiled in directly, or via a loadable [Module]. For example, serial ports are on <tt>char-major-4</tt>; eg <tt>ls -l /dev/ttyS0</tt> shows major device number 4 and minor device number 64...
59
60 <verbatim>
17 BlairHarrison 61 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 64 Feb 10 1998 /dev/ttyS0
19 JohnMcPherson 62 major ^ ^^ minor
27 AristotlePagaltzis 63 </verbatim>
10 JohnMcPherson 64
27 AristotlePagaltzis 65 A common problem char-major-10 is misc devices such as psaux, watchdog, apm and nvram - <tt>cat /proc/misc</tt> should list the ones you're using. You will probably need to do some configuration in <tt>/etc/modules</tt> or <tt>/etc/modules.conf</tt> (see modules.conf(5)). Normally these messages don't cause problems later in life, but it's nice to have them cleaned up.
66
67 The allocation of each number to its respective device can be looked up in the file <tt>/usr/src/linux-''$VERSION''/Documentation/devices.txt</tt>, provided the [Kernel] sources have been installed. In this file you can find out what device and module are affected. It does not have to be an error, but perhaps only information about the module not having to be loaded any more because it is already loaded or is not required.
68
69 To see what module you're missing, use
70
71 <verbatim>
10 JohnMcPherson 72 grep char-major-10-135 /etc/modutils/arch/i386
27 AristotlePagaltzis 73 </verbatim>
10 JohnMcPherson 74
27 AristotlePagaltzis 75 * <tt>char-major-6</tt> is the parallel port and can be fixed by compiling <tt>CONFIG_PARPORT=m</tt>
76 * <tt>char-major-10-135</tt> is the Enhanced Realtime Clock and can be fixed by compiling <tt>CONFIG_RTC=m</tt>
10 JohnMcPherson 77
78 See KernelErrorMessages for more information about missing modules.
79
27 AristotlePagaltzis 80 !!! Runlevel 2 and beyond
10 JohnMcPherson 81
27 AristotlePagaltzis 82 !! <tt>Loading syslog...</tt> (5 minute pause) <br> <tt>Loading MTA...</tt> (5 minute pause) <br> <tt>Loading apache... failed</tt>
26 JohnMcPherson 83
27 AristotlePagaltzis 84 Your problem is [DNS], or the lack thereof. These services will all want to look up names in their configuration (normally your local machine name) and will be taking a month of sundays to time out as a result. Confirm this by typing <tt>host mydomain.tla</tt> at the root prompt.
85
86 A good solution for this is to make sure that your /etc/hostname file (which is set using hostname(1)) also appears in your /etc/hosts file, like such:
87
88 <verbatim>
10 JohnMcPherson 89 127.0.0.1 localhost full.local.domain.name alias1 alias2
27 AristotlePagaltzis 90 </verbatim>
91
92 Eg:
93
94 <verbatim>
10 JohnMcPherson 95 127.0.0.1 localhost firewall.wiki.invalid firewall
27 AristotlePagaltzis 96 </verbatim>
97
98 Remember, <tt>/etc/hostname</tt> should contain the shortened version of the name, <tt>firewall</tt>, not the [FQDN], and the first name for 127.0.0.1 in <tt>/etc/hosts</tt> should be <tt>localhost</tt>.
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