Wolvix 2.0.0 beta2 bootproblem after frugal install

[Lupus]

Hello,

at first many thanks for Wolvix! I used it now for some months running it from cd and using persistant storage in my Debian Lenny root directory. It's really great! 

That's why I tried today a frugal install at the hard drive using WCP. It went very fast and without problems. I did not install a bootloader, because I have got already the grub bootloader from my Debian Lenny , which should boot Wolvix as well. I added the following two stanzas into my Debian /boot/grub/menu.lst file:

# Boot Wolvix frugal install on dev/hdb6
title           Wolvix GNU/Linux live (on dev/hdb6)
root            (hd1,5)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb6 ro wolvix noxconf
initrd          /boot/initrd.gz

# Boot Wolvix frugal install on dev/hdb6
title           Wolvix GNU/Linux live (single-user mode) (on /dev/hdb6)
root            (hd1,5)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb6 ro single
initrd          /boot/initrd.gz

Then I tried to boot my new frugal Wolvix installation with grub. Booting started without problem, but after the line "linux live end, starting wolvix", where I expect to read "INIT: version 2.86 booting", the output is "Usage: init 0123456sqQAaBbCcUu" and the system hangs  .

Now I tried to boot from cd with the boot parameter "wolvix nocd", but this is not recognized and the system runs from cd as usual.

I have got a cd with stable wolvix 1.1.0 as well. So the next step I'd do is try to install this on my hard drive, but I can't do it before next weekend.

So if perhaps anybody had already the same problem, I'd be glad to hear about!

Cheers,
Lupus

[oithona]

Lupus

For a frugal install of Wolvix-2.0.0-beta2 (basically a liveCD system running from hard disk) your grub menu.lst file entry should read:

title         Wolvix GNU/Linux live (on dev/hdb6)
root         (hd1,5)
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 rw load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=1 ramdisk_size=6666 max_loop=255 vga=791
initrd       /boot/initrd.gz
savedefault
boot

Give it a try.

Alternatively, run the installer again and install grub - it will pick up your Debian install and any other windows/linux OS you may have.

[Lupus]

Hi oithona,

of course, it's live, there is no physical root partition, a virtual one in RAM only!

With your menu.lst entry the system is booted fine by Debian grub. Thank you very much!

One problem still remains: My persistent storage file "wolvixsave.xfs" in the Debian root partition is not found. So I can't yet use the system, because I have to edit xorg.conf manually, because videoconfig is not able to configure my graphics system correctly. But for this I need wolvixsave.xfs. I've got no idea at all how to make the system finding wolvixsave.xfs.

If just moving it to the Wolvix partition could be the solution?

Many thanks for any ideas!

Lupus

[Wolven]

To stop Wolvix from auto configuring Xorg at boot you can add the cheat code "noxconf" to the kernel line in the menu.lst

kernel      /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 rw load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=1 ramdisk_size=6666 max_loop=255 vga=791 noxconf

As for the wolvixsave.xfs it should be picked up and used automagically if it's in the root of any HDD partition. Note that it's not supposed to be in the /root directory which is roots home dir.

/         <-- wolvixsave.xfs
/home
/root
/usr
/var
/etc

[Lupus]

Hi Wolven,

thank you very much for the friendly quick answer!

I'm now still working with the system directly booted from cd and I use my existing wolvixsave.xfs without any problems. When I boot from the frugal installed system, I cannot use my login name and passwort, I have to use "root" and "toor" instead. I think, that means, that the wolvixsave.xfs file is not found or used for a certain reason.

It's really in the Debian root partition "/", not in roots home "/root/" or anywhere.

As for noxconf, I tried it already with "wolvix noxconf" as I'm used from cd-boot. I'm going to wipe out "wolvix" there.

I had a look into the /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg file in my wolvix partition. There I found a "APPEND"-line with amongst others a parameter "changes=wolvixsave.xfs". But as I understand, this syslinux.cfg file is not used when booting from hard disk. So what about adding "changes=wolvixsave.xfs" to my grub kernel parameters as well? I'm going to give it a try now...

Lupus

[oithona]

Yes, if you use the frugal installer from the WCP it adds "changes=/dev/hdxy" automatically, but if you make a manual frugal install you have to add that line yourself.

[Lupus]

Hi oithona,

"changes=wolvixsave.xfs" did not work. Now I'm going to try "changes=/dev/hda1", where my wolvixsave.xfs resides.

Thanks a lot!

Lupus

[oithona]

Sorry - I'm confusing myself and you - the 'changes=/dev/hdxy' parameter is for a persistent partition - wolvixsave.xfs should be detected automatically wherever it is, as long as it's in the root of a partition, and won't be affected by a 'changes=' parameter.

[Lupus]

No problem, I got some steps forward in the meantime.

I felt, that it became a little dangerous for my  Debian installation when I too much fiddle in its root partition. So I bootet Debian, created a new ext3-partition "/dev/hdb7" and moved wolvixsave.xfs into this new partition.

After that I booted frugal wolvix with "changes=/dev/hdb7" and it made a persistant partition. This time even "vga=791" worked and I got a reasonable screen resolution, so that I could log in as root/toor.

The problem: No mouse. I tried to get a shell with Ctrl+Alt+Fx, but I didnt get a login prompt. The first virtual terminal shows the boot log and on the second X is running, F3 to F6 are dead. Its a little strange for me, because I'm used running X on F7.

I rebooted (its possible in the F1-screen) with Ctrl+Alt+Delete and added "single" to the boot parameters in the grub-shell to get a login in a virtual terminal, but I got a graphical X login again. Then I gave up, but only for today! Next Sunday I'll continue!

Today I have learned quite a lot. I now know, that for my frugal installtion I'd prefer a persistant partition (as I have got it now) to a persistant storage file.
The question is: How can I get out my data of this file and put into the persistant partition, i.e. how to avoid doing all configuration once more?

Wolven and oithona, you helped me so much, thank you so much!

Still a word to other forum users, especially to Beta, Gamma, and Delta Wolfs: Are my questions really so difficult, that only Wolven and oithona can help?

Have a nice week, until next weekend!

Lupus

[Wolven]

The gpm package is what controls the mouse in the terminal. It needs a rc.gpm file in /etc/rc.d to start. As gpm can be unstable it's not included in the package, but crated during the Slackware install process if you choose to enable it. Here's what the rc.gpm file should look like:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
#
# script to start GPM (General Purpose Mouse)
# enables mouse to be used in a terminal from init 3 run level

/usr/sbin/gpm -m /dev/mouse -t ps2

To make it run at boot make it executable:

Code:

chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.gpm

For the virtual terminal issues you might want to have a look at these two web pages: http://www.slackbook.org/html/shell-vt.html and http://humanreadable.nfshost.com/sdeg/gui_startup-2.htm to get some clues on how to make it suit your preferences.

If you want to disable the graphical log in you can use the cheat code "noslim", or edit the /etc/inittab

# These are the default runlevels in Slackware:
#   0 = halt
#   1 = single user mode
#   2 = unused (but configured the same as runlevel 3)
#   3 = multiuser mode (default Slackware runlevel)
#   4 = X11 with KDM/GDM/XDM (session managers)
#   5 = unused (but configured the same as runlevel 3)
#   6 = reboot

# Default runlevel. (Do not set to 0 or 6)
id:3:initdefault:

To get files out of the wolvixsave.xfs file you can mount it like this: (Tip: You can mount ISO files with the same way.)

Code:

mount -o loop wolvixsave.xfs /somedirectory

You should now be able to copy the files from /somedirectory to where ever you want.

Hope that helps you getting the setup you're looking for.

EDIT. I think I misunderstood your post a bit regarding the mouse issue. Are you lacking mouse in the terminal before starting X, or when X is running?

[Lupus]

Hi Wolven,

with your and oithona's help my frugal Wolvix installation is running fine now, thank you so much!

Here is a brief summary of the topic:

I installed Wolvix from cd using WCP but didnt activate Wolvix bootloader grub. Reason: I want to keep Debian as my primary operating System (Debian security upgrates of the Linux kernel are automatically integrated in /boot/grub/menu.lst, otherwise I had to do it manually each time).

During booting the system hung due to a wrong root partition I had written into Debian /boot/grub/menu.list file. oithona supplied me with a set of improved kernel parameters.

Thereafter the system booted, but I didn't have access to my persistant storage file wolvixsave.xfs and that's why not even the mouse was running. I tried to get a cli on a virtual terminal to edit xorg.conf, but there wasn't any.

Now I know, I had to add the kernel parameter "changes=wolvixsafe.xfs". I tried it already one week ago, but I obviously failed during handling the grub shell.

Booting Debian and copying the files out of wolvixsave.xfs with your mount command for using them in my new storage partition went without any problems.

Thank you very much as well for your instructions concerning GPM-support. Right, it wasn't my question, but probably it will be helpful for me when enabling it.

In the moment I not yet have got any virtual terminal. According to /etc/inittab one getty should be open on tty6. But that isn't subject of this topic. I hope, I'll find it out by myself, otherwise I'll open another topic.

Thanks once more for all advice!

Lupus