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Hi:
I have been using linux for many years, but have never tried to install it. I am trying to install SliTaz from a live CD. The OS boots fine from the CD, but I am having trouble when I try to booth it from a hard drive using grub. In particular, this is what I get when the machine tries to boot.
--
Booting command-list
root (hd0,0)
File system type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-30.6-slitaz root=/dev/hda1 quiet
[Linux-bzimage, setup=0x3000, size=0x21a850]
EXT3-fs: hda1: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (240).
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown block(3,1)
--
Any ideas?
Thanks - Hal.
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Hi,
1) What is filesystem type in your /dev/hda1? ext2 or ext3 or ext4?
2) Do you have /dev/hda1? Maybe, you'll try /dev/sda1 or use UUID?
[c]# blkid
...
/dev/sda1: LABEL="PQSERVICE" UUID="0159-6699"
...[/c]
In the menu.lst:
[c]...
root=UUID=0159-6699[/c]
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Thanks for the quick reply. I will try to answer your questions, but remember I am newbie.
My menu.lst is:
# For booting SliTaz from : /dev/hda1
#
title SliTaz GNU/Linux (cooking) (Kernel vmlinuz-2.6.30-slitaz)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz root=/dev/hda1 quiet
I am not using UUID. From what I have read it is better, but I cannot figure out how to make the initrd image.
I am putting the new OS on an external 2.5" 500G drive (for now because I do not want to screw up the internal disk). I wanted to make 6 partitions (so I can boot several OS's). They were all formatted with mkfs.ext3. When I put the disk on another machine, which is running FC15 btw, I get:
[root@marvin hal]# /sbin/fdisk -l
<deleted info about the main disk>
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6214db7d
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 411647 204800 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 411648 189155327 94371840 5 Extended
/dev/sdb3 189155328 193349631 2097152 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb4 193349632 976773167 391711768 83 Linux
/dev/sdb5 413696 63328255 31457280 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 63330304 126244863 31457280 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7 126246912 189155327 31454208 83 Linux
When I mount /dev/sdb1 and run df -T is get:
[root@marvin hal]# df -T | grep sdb
/dev/sdb1 ext3 198337 98582 89515 53% /media/027e0753-3be0-4c33-ac60-bb9bbb4af80b
and finally:
[root@marvin hal]# ls /media/027e0753-3be0-4c33-ac60-bb9bbb4af80b/boot/
grub vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz
Does this help?
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Try to change /dev/hda1 to /dev/sda1 in your menu.lst:
[c]kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz root=/dev/sda1 quiet[/c]
or
[c]kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz root=UUID=027e0753-3be0-4c33-ac60-bb9bbb4af80b quiet[/c]
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Neither one of those worked. However, I found a copy rootfs.gz on the CD. I copied that to /boot/rootfs-2.6.30.6-slitaz.gz and changed my menu.lst to:
# For booting SliTaz from : /dev/hda1
#
title SliTaz GNU/Linux (cooking) (Kernel vmlinuz-2.6.30-slitaz)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz root=UUID=027e0753-3be0-4c33-ac60-bb9bbb4af80b quiet
initrd /boot/rootfs-2.6.30.6-slitaz.gz
and that works! It is very slow though. I guess it need to uncompress rootfs-2.6.30.6-slitaz.gz. Can you think of any way around that?
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Oops. I was wrong. It IS booting, but it is booting the OS from the CD image and does not see the new filesystem. So, I am back where I was.
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Are you installed SliTaz on your hard disk?
Do you have next folders & file on your hard disk partition /dev/hda1 (or /dev/sda1)?—
[c]bin etc init media proc sbin tmp var
dev home lib mnt root sys usr[/c]
Can you start SliTaz LiveCD? Open terminal, became root (by typing su with password root), and start gparted. What GPartEd tell you about your hard drive, is it /dev/hda or /dev/sda?
Or, with fdisk -l
I can see, it tells you about sda. So why you use hda?
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Took me about 6 months to find a way around a similar problem
Add rootdelay=9 and make sure you address the right device (ie, i think from your config, sda1)
eg grub.list:
title SliTaz GNU/Linux (cooking) (Kernel vmlinuz-2.6.30-slitaz)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz root=/dev/sda1 rootdelay=9 quiet
If it does not work then switch back to hda1 and try again
if it works you may have to manually adjust /etc/fstab for /home
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That worked, Christophe. Thanks. Indeed, thanks to both of you!
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happy to hear that, thanks for the feedback.
We should really document somewhere that with external disks some rootdelay parameter is required....
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@christophe, this is already documented in
http://doc.slitaz.org/en:handbook:installation
under Installing SliTaz on an USB Device section.
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Good point. That makes me wonder if we could improve the documentation here.
Or better probably just add the rootdelay by default in config.lst (it does not hurt if not needed...)
I have not renewed my registration to update the doc since the site changed a while ago but will consider doing it 
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Hi Christophe,
better probably just add the rootdelay by default
Please, compare:
Boot in 10 seconds or less on a very recent machine
rootdelay=10
Ten seconds to booting + ten seconds to waiting usb drive.
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Did you actually compare it ?
I have not tried it recently, but it seemed to me from what i remember the rootdelay get shortened once the device is mounted (ie, it DOES NOT add 10s delay, just the time required, if any)
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Oh, thank you, Christophe.
Not, actually I not compared. Sorry. Only I remember real 6 s delay in the 3.0. Don't know if it was rootdelay or another sort of delay in waiting for usb device.
If so like you say, then it does no harm.
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Interesting code chunk from /etc/init.d/bootopts.sh:
[c]home=*)
# Check for a specified home partition (home=*) and check for
# user home dir. Note: home=usb is a shorter and easier way to
# have home=/dev/sda1.
DEVICE=${opt#home=}
[ "$DEVICE" = "usb" ] && DEVICE="$(usb_device)1"
echo "Home has been specified to $DEVICE..."
DEVID=$(/sbin/blkid | sed 'p;s/"//g' | fgrep "$DEVICE" | sed 's/:.*//;q')
if [ -z "$DEVID" ]; then
USBDELAY=$(cat /sys/module/usb_storage/parameters/delay_use)
USBDELAY=$((2+$USBDELAY))
echo "Sleeping $USBDELAY s to let the kernel detect the device... "
sleep $USBDELAY
fi[/c]
Appears that this is not enough?
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why do you say this is or may not be enough ?
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Nevermind.
We have automatic calculated delay when home mounted to USB, but have no similar code for root.
And I told you earlier about this delay. I see that is not what we need. Once again, my apologies.
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okay i can see a "true" sleep here.
I understand where you are coming from.
I think rootdelay works differently (this is part of grub by the way, not specific to slitaz)
Here I did not notice any difference between a rootdelay of 2 or 9, but i did not measure that either (though i tested both values).
I was booting from a usb disk which mounts pretty fast (but not as fast as to bypass any rootdelay).
I assumed grub was smart enough to just boot once it sees the device, even if it was instructed for some higher rootdelay...
But this is just an assumption on my side
I do not think modifying bootops would be of any help (unless i am wrong, the boot device is already mounted once it executes) but to add a default rootdelay of 6 or 9 when installing grub would make sense, just in case slitaz gets installed on an external disk.
And, of course, no need to apologize (if any such clarification was required)...
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@ Aleksej,
Well actually i did a formal test this week end after another (related) discussion on this forum, and the rootdelay does not time out, you were right it mathematically adds waiting time.
I did not notice that because I set it to 4 seconds, and booting from my USB disk takes 13 seconds (instead of 9 seconds for my sata drive).
That delay is real, but not significant enough that I would considered being betrayed by Slitaz'development team with a default 4s root delay (13s is I believe still faster than any other OS I have been booting on that machine)
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