L 99 99 99 ... on boot after installing Slackware 15.0

mfoley · 05-10-2024, 02:58 PM

I've been installing Slackware systems for 20+ years and this one is a first for me (although I've found other on the 'net). I've just installed Slackware 15.0 on a new system from the DVD. I've installed about 6 of these systems in the past month on identical hardware (MB, CPU). The only difference with this one is an 8TB drive which I've partitioned using gdisk. After doing the normal 'setup' I rebooted, but instead of Slackware booting I get on the screen "L 99 99 99 99 99 ..." repeated for several lines, then nothing.

I've found similar posts on the web, but none solved my issue. I tried booting from the DVD and doing the following:

Code:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
chroot /mnt
lilo

I've made minor tweaks to lilo.conf and did the above a couple of time. I also did one with 'lilo -M /dev/sda mbr', then did the above again. Nothing seem to work.

My partition table is:

Code:

root@slackware:/# gdlsk -l /dev/sda
GPT fdlsk (gdlsk) verslon 1.8.8 

Partition table scan: 
MBR: protective 
BSD: not present 
RPM: not present 
GPT: present 

Found valid GPT with protective MBR: using GPT. 
Disk /dev/sda: 15628153168 sectors. 7.3 TiB 
Model: ST8000DM004-2U91 
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/4096 bytes 
Disk Identifier (GUID): B6E976D5-15AA-499C-991E-3AD7185BB157 
Partition table holds up to 128 entries 
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33 
First usable sector is 34. last usable sector is 15628153134 
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries 
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.8 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size      Code  Name
1               2048        16779263   8.1 Gi8    8200  Linux swap
2           16779264     15628053134   7.3 TIB    8300  Linux filesystem

My lilo.conf is:

Code:

append=" vt.default_utf8=1"
boot = /dev/sda
bitmap = /boot/slack.bmp
bmp-colors = 255,0,255,0,255,0
bmp-table = 68,6,1,15
bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255

prompt
timeout = 1200
change-rules
reset
vga = normal
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sda2
label = Linux
read-only

Boot image is:

Code:

# ls -l /mnt/boot/vmlinuz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       30 May 10 02:43 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-huge-5.15.19

Any ideas on why I can't boot to Linux?

BrunoLafleur · 05-10-2024, 03:12 PM

Is the sata 8TB disk declared as bootable in the BIOS ?
But GPT is not the same scheme as MBR so lilo won't work. If you have a second MBR disk, you can put lilo there.
In that case you probably need Grub, or elilo with UEFI activated on your BIOS.

rizitis · 05-10-2024, 03:17 PM

# blkid /dev/sda2. Then, replace root = /dev/sda2 in lilo.conf with root = UUID=<your-root-partition-UUID>. might work.
just my 5 cent

yancek · 05-10-2024, 03:19 PM

The link below discusses the problem and should provide a solution. If you read post 10 at the site, it explains what the 99 means which should be a good hint.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...-a-4175674876/

The link below to the Arch site might help.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/LILO

mfoley · 05-10-2024, 03:29 PM

I did previously look at your first suggested link. Post 10 says, "Errors 99 and 9A usually mean the map file ('-m' or 'map=') is not readable, likely because LILO was not re-run after some system change, or there is a geometry mismatch between what LILO used (lilo -v3 to display) and what is actually being used by the BIOS...."

I did not do any "system change" after the initial install, so I didn't think this applied to my situation. Post #10 ff. didn't offer a fix. I'm going to reinstall from scratch, including reformatting the /dev/sda2 partition and see what happens. I'll be back ...!

Petri Kaukasoina · 05-10-2024, 03:29 PM

Why these lines:

Code:

change-rules
reset

henca · 05-10-2024, 03:42 PM

Much to my surprise, I was once (mostly by accident) able to install and successfully boot with lilo on a GPT partitioned drive. If I remember right, that was on a drive bigger than 2 TB. I initially configured a newer version of syslinux/extlinux to do an uefi boot of Slackware on the drive, but by accident installed LILO when pushing out a customized kernel update package and somehow the computer bios picked up that LILO installation and booted in its legacy mode.

Maybe I was only lucky and now you do not seem so lucky. My guess is that there is something wrong with the geometry of the drive making lilo confused.

If your only drive in the computer is 8 TB a good old DOS/MBR partition table will not be usable. If you are unable to get lilo working you might need to resort to UEFI boot using your favorite UEFI boot loader.

I haven't tried limine myself, but from what I have read it seems to support MBR booting from a GPT partitioned drive.

regards Henrik

Petri Kaukasoina · 05-10-2024, 03:48 PM

Yes, lilo works with GPT disks.

mfoley · 05-10-2024, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Petri Kaukasoina

Why these lines:

Code:

change-rules
reset

The Slacware setup program put them there by default. I really don't know what they do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Petri Kaukasoina

Yes, lilo works with GPT disks.

Well, I've reinstalled from scratch again and same thing "L 99 99 99 99 ...". I didn't make any system adjustments, just rebooted from the setup process.

I think I've booted lilo with GPT drives too, but I'm going to take henca's advice and try UEFI. Again, I'll be back ...!

mfoley · 05-10-2024, 05:51 PM

I've reconfigured the system to boot UEFI and did the Slackware setup which ran ELILO. Well folks, that worked! So perhaps this combination of motherboard (ASUS B550M-A WiFi II) and hard drive (Segate Barracuda ST8000DM004) make UEFI necessary. Perhaps any drive > 2TB makes UEFI necessary! As my main job is to get this computer working and not do exploratory reasearch, I'm going to leave it there and continue configuring and installing.

However, this may be a portent for the future. I currently have no boot drives > 2TB configured on any of my systems. This possibly means that if I want to increase the size of any boot drive beyone 2TB I'll have to reformat as UEFI and make sure I have a BIOS that supports UEFI.

I'll leave this open for a bit in case anyone has additional comments.

dhalliwe · 05-10-2024, 07:07 PM

Here are my specs for LILO on a >2TB boot disk:

ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming mobo

Root file system (/) is on /dev/sda2

From fdisk -l /dev/sda:

Quote:

Disk /dev/sda: 3.64 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD40EZRZ-22G
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: CB0B7AA3-6D30-4A88-B0B4-97E0C4DF187D

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 39061503 39059456 18.6G Linux swap
/dev/sda2 39061504 488282111 449220608 214.2G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3 488282112 7814035455 7325753344 3.4T Linux filesystem

Relevant bits from /etc/lilo.conf

Quote:

# Start LILO global section
lba32 # Allow booting past 1024th cylinder with a recent BIOS
boot = /dev/sda

...

#generic kernel as first option
image = /boot/vmlinuz-generic
initrd = /boot/initrd.gz
root = /dev/sda2
label = Linux_generic
read-only

Hope this helps...

dodoLQ · 05-11-2024, 02:44 AM

Normally when using big hard drive, you should use UEFI for booting and it is designed for that purpose. Here i configured a headless config (not recent / core2duo E8500) serving as a NAS. For the 2TB barracuda HD attached to the mobo, i configured a primary part of 200Go for the system and the remaining for data (/dev/sda2 mounted at boot). LILO works without pb.

henca · 05-11-2024, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dhalliwe

Code:

lba32 # Allow booting past 1024th cylinder with a recent BIOS

I can confirm that I also have that line in my lilo.conf files, both on ordinary drives and probably also on the big drive partitioned with GPT.

My installation process is slightly customized, but having the exact same line with the same comment makes me think it comes from the standard Slackware installation script. However, that line was missing from lilo.conf in OP and could explain those geometry problems that lilo had.

The post installation script setup.liloconfig calls /sbin/liloconfig which, if seemed necessary, will add that line.

I don't know if the "change-rules" and "reset" lines causes any problem when detecting that lba32 should be needed, but it seems as if those lines are only added to lilo.conf when at post install selecting the simple automatic lilo installation. When going in expert mode it seems as if those lines are not added.

regards Henrik

enorbet · 05-11-2024, 04:30 AM

I'll resist ranting about how much I despise UUID and dislike distros that force Grub down my throat because I know I'm old, old school, and likely kinda weird and obsessive about PCs of which I have several fairly active. My Main PC has 14 TB among 5 drives (not including my NAS), some M.2 NVME drives and some spinners, all partitioned as GPT with roughly 30 partitions and several bootable systems. Some systems are good ol' LILO, some are eLILO, but most of my newer systems are UEFI. All of them boot just fine, even old LILO systems.

It was a bit of a PITA mixing old and new for a time until I started using rEFInd. It has great docs, the syntax is like LILO, handles multibooting of each system just fine and I never have to run a binary file after editing refind.conf. No brainer for me.

dhalliwe · 05-11-2024, 08:54 AM

I've been using lilo to boot Slackware since forever (30+ years), and I'm taking the approach that if it works, don't fix it.

I don't know the origins of the "lba32" line in my lilo.config, but I know that at some time in the past I used to see warning messages about lilo assuming something of that sort when I would re-run it after a kernel upgrade. I may have added it (or copied it from a default config when I was upgrading at some point in the past) to get rid of that warning. "lba32 first appeared in my lilo.conf file in mid-2020.

I usually keep the root file system on its own partition. Another old habit.