[Soekris] installing linux on net4801

[Bill Maas]

Hello Domenico,

I'm not a GRUB expert so I can't judge your config, but it looks OK to
me as far as options are concerned, and besides nobody has reported
errors so far, so I guess it's not a GRUB or kernel option problem. You
could try copying a different (e.g. older) kernel to the CF, just to see
if it will boot (ignoring module versions for the test). If it does,
then it might as well be a Linux kernel bug. I've seen Linux kernel
X.Y.Z booting, X.Y.Z+1 hanging, and X.Y.Z+2 booting again before on a
particular machine. Here's a vmlinuz known to boot on a Soekris boxen, a
net4501 at least (and I've never seen a report on this list that it
wouldn't run on any other Soekris):

http://www.cheapnet.net/~mike/soekris/vmlinuz

If no other kernel boots, then I'm out of options. Disk geometry?
By the way, am I correctly guessing that you burned Debian onto the CF
on a different host? Here are two alternatives:

http://www.cheapnet.net/~mike/soekris/ (where the kernel comes from)
http://soren.overgaard.org/debian/soekris-net4801 (uses
debian-installer)

I've installed Debian over NFS using debootstrap or dbootstrap - I'm not
sure which one and if it is still supported - a few years ago, it went
very, very smoothly. I've never had any trouble installing whatever from
a login on the Soekris box itself.

Hope any of these will work.


Bill


On Fri, 2007-06-29 at 13:09 +0200, Domenico Cacciari wrote:
> Hi,
> about the output of grub i see only ¨starting¨ after the grub menu and
> then nothingelse.
> My menu.lst is this:
> 
> default         0
> timeout         3
> hiddenmenu
> serial --unit=0 --speed=19200
> terminal --timeout=15 console serial
> 
> title           Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-server
> root            (hd0,0)
> kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-server
> root=UUID=8b5b1223-70a5-4235-a2f7-4bc107fff97c ro console=ttyS0,19200n8
> initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-server
> quiet
> savedefault
> 
> title           Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-server (recovery mode)
> root            (hd0,0)
> kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-server
> root=UUID=8b5b1223-70a5-4235-a2f7-4bc107fff97c ro single
> initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-server
> 
> title           Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-15-server
> root            (hd0,0)
> kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server
> root=UUID=8b5b1223-70a5-4235-a2f7-4bc107fff97c ro quiet splash
> initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-server
> quiet
> savedefault
> 
> title           Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-15-server (recovery mode)
> root            (hd0,0)
> kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server
> root=UUID=8b5b1223-70a5-4235-a2f7-4bc107fff97c ro single
> initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-server
> 
> title           Ubuntu, memtest86+
> root            (hd0,0)
> kernel          /boot/memtest86+.bin
> quiet
> ---------------------------------
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Domenico
> 
> Bill Maas wrote:
> > Hello Domenico,
> >
> > Send more details, like the GRUB output. Another list member sent you
> > the contents of his menu.lst, where's yours? You're communicating at the
> > "help it doesn't work" level.
> >
> >
> > Bill
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 2007-06-29 at 10:22 +0200, Domenico Cacciari wrote:
> >   
> >> Thanks to all for your help,
> >> but if i start linux with qemu it works well with serial console and
> >> boots up normaly.
> >> This is what i can´t understand, why the same cf card works with qemu
> >> and serial console, but with the net4801 it does not work?
> >>
> >>     
> 
-- 
"Fix bugs first, add features later"