[vox-tech] Getting new Linux box to boot

[Richard Crawford]

Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> 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.

That makes sense.  The authors probably included this note in the 
instructions on the assumption that this would be a dual-boot system. 
Every single page of instructions I've found EVERYWHERE on how to set up 
a boot loader assumes a dual-boot system.  Kind of frustrating in a way, 
since this computer has no Windows on it at all.


>>/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.

Actually, it looks to me like LuMiX is based on RedHat instead of on 
Debian like I had originally assumed.  It uses GRUB as its boot loader 
instead of LILO.  Either way, a boot loader still has to be installed.  :)

LuMiX, by the way, is a Linux distribution developed exclusively for 
public libraries.  Our librarian was interested in trying it out; and 
since I'm on the library commission and the only one in the library who 
has any experience with Linux (our IT guy is a good fellow but he's a 
die-hard M$ loyalist), I volunteered to install it onto one of the 
desktop machines that we retired.


> 
> 
>>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!   :)

I'll try them all, and let you know.  Thanks!

-- 
Slainte,
Richard S. Crawford (http://www.mossroot.com AIM: Buffalo2K)
Fitness blog: http://www.mossroot.com/02h
The Literate Penguin: http://www.mossroot.com/lp
"You can't trust your judgement if your imagination is
out of focus."  --Mark Twain