[vox-tech] Getting new Linux box to boot

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Fri 31 Dec 04, 10:05 AM, Richard Crawford <rscrawford at mossroot.com> said:
> I'm still working on this LuMiX box (thanks to Pete for helping me with 
> the cdrom problem).  I've done the following:
> 
> Used Tom's Root Boot on a floppy to fdisk the hard drive into three 
> partitions (for the sake of simplicity and ease): /dev/hda1 (bootable), 

BTW, as I understand it, Linux doesn't doesn't care about the "bootable"
flag.  Every partition on a Linux system is bootable.  That flag is used
solely for the MS Windows bootloader.


> /dev/hda2 (swap), and /dev/hda3.  I mounted /dev/hdc onto /cdrom, and 
> /dev/hda1 onto /lmx.  I then extracted the archive using:
> 
> # gunzip /cdrom/lumix.1.3.6-0.tar.gz -c | tar xvf - > /lmx
> 
> Unfortunately, the computer does not yet boot into Linux.  I assume that 
> the fdisk I ran hosed the MBR on this computer or something like that, 

It shouldn't have!  I don't see where you installed something into the MBR.
I've never heard of lumix, but I assume it uses lilo.  If so, making one of
your partitions bootable isn't going to do anything for you.  You actually
need to install something into your MBR.

> so I've been trying to run GRUB to reinstall a boot loader. 
> Unfortunately, when I try to execute:
> 
> # /lmx/boot/grub/grub
> 
> I get an error message:
> 
> /lmx/boot/grub/grub: not found
> 
> even though grub exists in that directory.  I assume that the grub 
> program is making a call to /sbin/grub/grub instead of 
> /lmx/sbin/boot/grub; trouble is, Tom's Root Boot does not come with Grub.

/dev/hda1 is mounted as /lmx, right?

Does /lmx/boot/grub/grub have the executable flag set?

Do a "mount" and see if the partition was mounted with "noexec".  There was
a mount option that implied "noexec" too... what was it...  oh, right.  If
/dev/hda1 was mounted with the "user" or "users" option, that implies
"noexec".  Try doing this:

   mount /dev/hda1 /lmx -o remount,exec

Also, in case grub is a shell script wrapper front-end, (do file
/path/to/grub), make sure /bin/sh is where the shell script expects it to
be.

It should be one of these three ideas!   :)

Pete

-- 
The mathematics of physics has become ever more abstract, rather than more
complicated.  The mind of God appears to be abstract but not complicated.
He also appears to like group theory.  --  Tony Zee's "Fearful Symmetry"

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