thekro

OK, after about a week of kernel hacking, I found the problem. It had to do with the LAPIC, but the kernel code does not check if you have said nolapic or not at that stage, and the machine was going into a panic before activating the console to display messages. The way to get the machine going is as follows (with Mandrake 9.2): 1) Download the 2.4.22-10mdk kernel-source. 2) Make sure you have GCC 3.3 (GCC 2.95 reports syntax errors in the kernel despite the kernel only complaining if the GCC version is <= 2.91) 3) Compile the kernel in a subdirectory, after making these changes in make menuconfig: -first enable LAPIC - this gives you the IO APIC option -enable IO APIC - this supplies the IBM Hotplug option under hotplugging -disable the IBM hotplug (otherwise make exits in make modules_install because of unresolved dependencies) -then disable IO APIC and LAPIC again 4) when you have finished the make modules, do a make modules_install with an INSTALL_MOD_PATH option, and write the modules directory and the necessary system files onto a CD. Now get a copy of the first CD of the slackware 9.1 distro - this has ISO fs support (and vfat) builtin, so will allow you to mount the CD-ROM you have just written. Install mandrake 9.2, choosing to use the alternate kernel (alt1) at bootup. This will allow you to perform the installation, but will install the alt0 kernel onto your system, which will thus not boot. Now boot the slackware CD. Once you get to the prompt, mount your linux partition, and inside that, mount the CD with the compiled kernel. Then chroot to your system, copy the modules into /lib/modules/linux-<kernel version>, and the system files into /boot, and update lilo. This new kernel should now boot. Cheers TheKro

Just tried knoppix - the version on our archive is 3.3Beta, using kernel 2.4.22-xfs. The CD freezes at exactly the same space as my mandrake install: Loading vmlinuz....... Loading miniroot.gz <screen clears> Uncompressing Linux.......Ok, booting the kernel. <Freezes> (I only get the last message using vga=normal or the knoppix-txt boot choice - otherwise the screen just goes blank.) TheKro

For most PCMCIA problems, it seems to me the first steps of the boot process work ok, and it only hangs later on. My laptop hangs on the message "Ok, booting the kernel". I'll try the modules.conf approach, but I have a feeling that there may be more to it (since my laptop wouldn't boot with the 2.4 kernel off the install CD as well). (I do believe that once I get it past freezing at this stage, there is also going to be trouble with the PCMCIA, though). The freeze is happening before any modules are loaded (in fact, before the file systems get mounted). Thanks for the suggestion about knoppix - will see if it's on our archive. TheKro

Hi there. I just tried your suggestion, unfortunately nothing has changed. Any other suggestions? Thanks thekro

Hi there. I am having trouble running Mandrake 9.2 on an Acer Travelmate 252LC. The machine came with XP on, and I did a CD install. My first problem was that after the "hit enter to upgrade or install prompt", the install would hang on a blank screen. Using F1 and text mode showed me that the install was hanging booting the kernel (which was 2.4.22-10mdkBOOT). So, I ran the install with the alternate kernel (2.2.19-BADZ5). This worked fine, although I got two error messages along the way: -after detecting USB devices, I got: Error: we now use kernel PCMCIA support and this won't work with a 2.2 kernel. -a bit later (before being prompted for keyboard layout, I think), I got: PCMCIA support no longer exists for 2.2 kernels. Please use a 2.4 kernel. Despite these errors, the install went OK, and I updated the XP boot.ini file to use LILO text mode (and XP boots fine). However, when I try to boot linux now, the system hangs booting the kernel again. Booting using "linux-nonfb" to get more messages shows it's hanging on: Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel I have tried booting using noapic, nolapic, nopcmcia - none of these seem to work. By using a rescue disk, I've discovered that all the linux options in LILO are trying to load the 2.4.22-10mdk kernel (which was hanging during installation). However, I have no idea how to put a different kernel there for use by LILO. Thanks for any advice TheKro