Youngstorm,

Don't worry 'bout me giving up. I'll build a new computer JUST for Linux before that happens!

I've committed myself to learning Linux so I can eventually say goodbye to Bill (at home at least). I'm very concerned about my digital privacy and after I heard the EFF on The Screensavers a couple of times telling me how MS is "On Board" with all the governments new...how should one say...decisions to keep tabs on me, I decided it was time for a little learning! I started with Win95 back in 1998 and had absolutely NO knowledge of anything and I can sure do it again!

I've got a couple other machines in the house....my wife's PC is upstairs so I could do that if necessary.

Motub

You know what...this machine does have a 3.0 gig Hyperthreading processor...could that be where I having all the problems?

The second choice:

Fedora Core-up (2.4.22-1.2115 nptl)

seems to be a text based mode and stops responding immediately after the "Initializing firewire controller (ohci1394) [ok]" prompt. Then nothing responds unless I hit CNTL-ALT-DEL a few times where I get

MD: recovery process has re woke (or something to this effect) and then the system reboots.

I have seen a few other thread with similar issues (locking up at "starting first-time boot configuration") but the only suggestion was to boot into Linux Rescue and do "XFree86 -configure" but since I get and invalid command there, I must be doing something wrong.

As I said, I HAVE been able to get to the Login screen twice and managed to login as Root once. However, on both occasions, the computer locked up tight and would proceed no further. I was also able to get to the First Boot GUI though I'm not sure how. However...as soon as I get there, the computer hung again.

Like I said, I'm in this for the long haul...if I need to reconfigure...re-install...build a new box...I'm down. I'm going to run Linux...Linux just doesn't know it yet !

Regards,
Paul

Now, I've gotta say that I don't know the first thing about Hyper-Threading (having an AMD processor), and I have heard it said that that functionality "is like having multiple processors", but 1) I don't trust the source I heard this from; and 2) Linux is not known for playing pretend. So whether or not hyper-threading is in fact like having multiple processors, flatly if you don't have 2 or more physical CPUs plugged into the mobo, I don't think that an smp kernel is what you are meant to use. But as I said, I am far from expert on the function, so I could be wrong.

What I'm noticing though, is that with the regular kernel (non-smp, which may well be in text mode because you haven't run the firstboot daemon to configure any other modes) you're getting a Firewire error. This suggests that you may actually be getting the same error when the Firstboot thing runs with the other kernel, you just can't see it.

It is certainly reasonable to suppose that the Firstboot Wizard would try to detect your hardware before presenting a screen offering configuration options, and if the HW detection hung somewhere, I could see how the (stupid, annoying, interfering... sorry) Wizard might not know what to do at that point. And who can say what kind of Firewire support the 2.4.22 kernel might have had (not me-- no FW devices or ports on this mobo, either ).

So I'm thinking that maybe the Firewire is the problem. It's a working theory, anyway.

Do you have any Firewire devices connected to the system atm? Do you have any that aren't currently connected but that you commonly use (that you will be using when the system is up)? If not, I would say try disabling the FW ports in the BIOS and see if that lets you squeak through. If it does, we can worry about how to enable the ports later (I doubt that upgrading your kernel will stress you out much; you seem pretty tough ). If not, we're back to square 1, but at least we'll have eliminated something.

Hope this helps.

Great to hear that Paul
This will probably be my last post for the night
Im about to go home but will continue helping tomarrow.
Question. Do you know what a mount point is?
to fix your problem I think you'll need to know about them.
If you don't go to www.tldp.org and read up.
You'll need to know about them anyway so it's no
loss. What I think will work is this:
1.Boot to rescue mode and get to a prompt.
2.Edit a file. /etc/sysconfig/firstboot
3.Change RUN_FIRSTBOOT to = NO

That should stop firstboot from running.
The problem is that by booting off the cd, /etc
is no longer at /etc.
/ will be mounted as /tmp or something like that.
We may even have to mount it ourselves.
No problem doing that, so dont worry and its a
really good thing for you to learn.

Motub,

Yes...according to my device manager, WinXP sees my processor as Two (2) 3.0 gig P4. Now...that may or may not be the case for Linux but I believe we can get to that later.

As for Firewire...there is an [ok] at the end of the line where we get "initializing firewire controller (ohci1394). Does that mean it did it or that it's still a problem.

I currently don't have ANY firewire sources connected to the box but would like to have availability if possible. Also, I don't mind trying to fix this later...as I said, I'm in this for the long haul! I check around in the BIOS and see what's up.

Youngstorm,

The link you provided me isn't working. All I get is the dreaded "404 Not Found" error. Are there other resouces that can help me out with this? I do some digging around tonight and see what I come up with but thanks for all the help today.

As for this:
1.Boot to rescue mode and get to a prompt.
2.Edit a file. /etc/sysconfig/firstboot
3.Change RUN_FIRSTBOOT to = NO

How do I get from here:
-/bin/sh-2.05b#

which is where running the rescue CD leave me to where I can do what listed above?

I haven't had this much fun on the computer since I picked up my first one six years ago!

-/bin/sh-2.05b#nano /etc/sysconfig/firstboot.

Nano is a console-based text editor. Others are pico and vi. You definitely have vi installed on your system (it's standard for Linux to install this), but vi is hard to use if you haven't used it before, although it is very powerful if you know what you're doing. Nano and pico are a bit easier as they have the keyboard shortcuts on the bottom of the screen ("^" represents the CTRL key) and are certainly appropriate for a simple editing job like this, but may not be installed. If you get a command not found when typing the command above, replace nano with pico or vi. I would suggest printing out a vi cheat sheet from Windows beforehand, though... when you see it, you'll see why.

The TLDP (The Linux Documentation Project) apparently can't be linked to without the full and complete link, which is http://www.tldp.org/ .

There are plenty of good sites to give basic Linux info... in fact, try looking on the upper right side of this page and you'll see links to Linux Tutorials on this very site.

But I can tell you real fast what a mount point is. Actually, if you're a native speaker of English, you already know, but just don't know that you know.

Start with the word "mount". You know what that is. It's what you do with a horse, so you can ride it. Or what you do with a cannon and a ship, so that the ship has cannons available to it. And it's what you do with drives and partitions so that they are visible in your file manager, so you can access your data.

If you don't mount things, you have them, but you can't use them.

And you have to mount things in a specific place-- the mount point. On a horse, the mount point is the saddle, not, for example, the horse's head. On a ship, the mount points are the cannon ports, where the cannons are bolted to the hull (and there's a hole so that the muzzle can stick out).

All OSes have to mount drives (because if you don't mount things, you have them but you can't use them). Windows mounts drives as well, but the Windows filetree is not flexible like the Linux filetree. So your floppy drive (which is /dev(ice)/f(loppy)d(rive)0 in actual fact, just like it is under Linux-- machines are machines are machines) is hard coded to mount to a point which will always be named A:/. Under Linux, the same mount point could be called /floppy, or /mnt/floppy, or /mnt/fd0, or pretty much whatever you want. The same with C:\, D:\, etc. Windows will always mount the first primary partition on the master HDD on the primary IDE channel at C:\. This is how they ensure that Windows is (almost) always installed to C:\Windows. It is only recently that Windows became even flexible enough to allow the system files to reside on another drive than the one mounted at the hard-coded C:\ mount point. There's a page on the MS Knowledge Base which actually tells you in what order Windows will mount discovered partitions to the hard-coded mount points, but I'm not going to look up the link right now, if you don't mind .

In any case, what youngstorm is saying is that the mount points for a pre-installed system (the system is not actually considered to be installed until you've run this firstboot thing, a process that you may be familiar with from installing Windows) may not conform to the final mount points of the root filetree, especially when you're booting from CD, where the root filetree is actually on the CD and the system on the HDD is not being.... mounted... to its normal locations, if it's being mounted at all.

From the command prompt you can get to, you can always type man mount to read the manual for the mount command. These are the "man pages" you may have heard of. This will explain the syntax of the mount command, and all of the options for it, in technical language, but great detail. This function is available for almost every command; man <command_name> should always be your first port of call if you want to know how to use a command, or what it does.

Anyway, I'll wait to hear how you get on from here, good luck.

motub: thanks for picking up where I left off.
I ran out of time to last night and could not do
the job more thoroughly.

Paul: have you made any progress?
If you need help mounting the hard drive let
us know.

Michael

Motub and Youngstorm,

Thanks for the reply...I'm still waaaay new on this and need all the help I can get. I was pretty much Off The Grid all day yesterday putzing around the house taking care of stuff (isn't that what vacations are for?).

I'll give this some more time today and get back with as soon as I can.

Regards,
Paul

Cool deal

Youngstorm

I believe this is the case. When I typed "/etc/sysconfig/firstboot", it seemed to be a new entry. There was no option for me to change "yes" to "no".

I'm ready for the next lesson now. Would this were I need to mount the actual Linux System Drive (Am I even thinking along the correct lines?) and if so, what's the process?

Motub,

Thanks for the links. I'll be doing a lot of reading on this from this point. I'm even thinking about buying one of the O'Reilly books for this just so I can have something to look at.

Apparently, I don't have Nano, but Pico and Vi seem to be there ready to go. It is a bit confusing but I'm hangin' in there and will hopefully learn what I need to do. Also, thanks for the tips on man. I had tried that but I wasn't sure if what I was seeing was what the command prompt should look like. I take it that "-/bin/sh-2.05b#" is the command prompt...yes?

The way I see this is...if I'm able to get this to work anytime in the next few months, I'm better off than I was yesterday.

First, let me address some of the things
you said to Motub. For now, stick to using
pico. It is very easy to use and works well.
vi and emacs are the more advanced linux
text editors. Learn to use them, but not now.
Just my 2 cents.

-/bin/sh-2.05b# is a command prompt.
A prompt that ends with a '#' generly
means you are logged in as root.
Any user other than root generly has
a prompt ending with a '$'.

OK. now to stop that firstboot thing. We
want to stop firstboot from running just
to see if that is what is causing the problem.
You already know to boot off your CD
in rescue mode to get to a prompt.
1. I need you to tell me how you have
your hard drive partitioned. you find
that out by doing this at the prompt
"fdisk -l". I'll do this now on mine so
you can see the output.

##########fdisk output##############
Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10337 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 4063 30716248+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 4064 10336 47423880 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 4064 6273 16707568+ b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda6 6274 10200 29688088+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 10201 10335 1020568+ 82 Linux swap

##################################

The command "fdisk -l" the -l is a lowwer case L.
Just so you don't get confussed. Mine is rather straight
foword. /dev/hda6 is mounted at /. I hope the lines don't
wrap such that we can't read them .

I'll wait for your reply with the output. OH!!!
you only need to give me the colunms "device",
"id" and "system".

Youngstorm,

I was finally able to get a command to work! YIPPEE! (Making note to self...something finally worked correctly...I'm on my way) "fdisk -l" actually did what you expected it to do.

Here's my system:

Device_________Boot__ID____System
/dev/hdb1______*_____7_____HFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb2______ _____83____Linux
/dev/hdb3______ _____83____Linux
/dev/hdb4______ _____f______Win95 ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb5______ _____82____Linux Swap

I think I had planned on using hdb3 as the swap file but it appears that the Swap File was handled by the setup itself.

Again, let me say how nice it was of you and Motub to spend so much time helping me out with this

Regards,
Paul

You're very welcome... this is pretty much what I do (now, if only someone would pay me )..

Anyway, the first thing I notice is that neither of the Linux partitions in question is marked bootable. Most likely this is something that is done by the firstboot wizard as part of the final stages of configuration (which usually include setting up the bootloader).

So we probably need to know which of the two Linux partitions is / and what then is the other one (that isn't swap). If you had planned to use hdb3 for swap, but it's now used for something else, the chances are that it's quite a small and useless partition.

But we won't worry about that atm (though the partition sizes-- generally-- would be nice).

And, btw-- write this down somewhere. You'd be surprised how often you might need to know that the Windows drive is hda1, the Linux root is hdb whatever and that hdb* is the partition where you keep your picture files--- and you'd be surprised how quickly you will forget this information, despite having sweated bullets both to layout these partitions and to get them operational.

Trust me. Write it down somewhere where you won't lose it. Just in case.

Alrighty...I'll just go and get that Information too.

One question...you mentioned that Windows should be hda1. I'm wondering why then is my Windows Partition hdb1?

Be right back

Regards,
Paul

That NTFS partition is hdb1 because it's on the first primary partition of the slave device on the primary IDE channel.

In general, Windows wants to be on first primary partition of the master device on the primary IDE channel (thus, hda1), but as I mentioned, Windows has lately become a bit more flexible and will allow itself to be installed on other drives and partitions.

However, are you sure that that is in fact the Windows system root? What is the master device on the first IDE channel? Another HDD? A CD-ROM? Does Windows only have a C:\ drive, or does it have a C:\ and D:\ (in which case, what you're seeing may be the D:\ drive and not the C:\ drive).

In any case, the easiest way to get the partition sizes is to use cfdisk in almost the same way you've used fdisk. They're both partition managers, but cfdisk is somewhat preferable because it gives more, and more human-readable, information.

You're still root, right? Type cfdisk /dev/hdb. You'll get the same partition layout information, but cfdisk will show the label if there is one, and the size of the partition in MB, so it makes it much easier to identify what's what, since you know what you had tried to do with the partition layout in the first place.

Just don't make any changes, and arrow over to Quit when you've absorbed the info... if you have other drives, such as /dev/hda, you can run cfdisk for them too and see what their layout is.

See you shortly.

Answered my own question...the list was incomplete!


Here's how it's really broken up:

Device_________Boot__ID____System
/dev/hda1______ _____de____Dell Utility
/dev/hda2______*_____7_____HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb1______*_____7_____HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb2______ _____83____Linux
/dev/hdb3______ _____83____Linux
/dev/hdb4______ _____f______Win95 ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb5______ _____82____Linux Swap


I have THREE physical Drives in this computer. As Windows used to report it, I had:

"C" - 120 gb main drive
"D" - 60 gb storage drive (my ripped music)
"E" - 120 gb storage drive for Video Files and backup storage

The way I *INTENDED* for this to work:
"C" remained untouched (for the learning process to complete at least)
"D" partioned into one 40 gig drive (storage-music), a 16 gig Linux partition (for the OS) and a 2 gig swap file (based on the ever popular Windows scheme of "amount of RAM x 2)
"E" would remain untouched.

I'm not sure that's what happened though.

As for the *actual* partition sizes...all I noticed when I ran "fdisk -l" were *Block Sizes*. Is this what I need to provide or is there another way for me to report the *actual* partition sizes?

Regards,
Paul