Re: [gentoo-dev] Boot failure

[Nathaniel Grady <nate@nutopia.org>]

While I havn't done this since 1.0RC5 I believe it should still work ok. Try using a current slackware boot/root disk set - if memory serves they have support for reiserfs. Boot from the boot/root disks as usual, use fdisk to create a partition, format it, mount it, then extract the build tbz file onto that partition, then mount /proc /newpartition/proc -o bind and chroot /newpartition and you should be set... To get the tbz you may want to use the "network" root disk so you can access NFS or else i believe ftp was on the "color" root disk.

My method now is to have 2 partitions and just cycle back and forth. Install gentoo (or some other linux) on one partition, format the other partition, extract the latest gentoo build tarball onto that partition, mount proc on the new system and chroot to it. From there it's the same as off a cd ('cept you may want to mount the original partition under /mnt/oldgentoo and copy files from /etc/ rather than recreating them - but watch out for changes to the rc system and such if you do that). When you're ready to upgrade again you do the same thing with the partitions reversed. This has the distinct advantage that you *always* have a working system at any given point - you don't destroy the old system untill you're absolutly shure the new one works (or not at all if you have disk space to burn... I actually keep my mp3's on which ever partition i'm not using them and offload them to another computer during the upgrade since i can live w/o them). Very important if you screw someting up and have to write a paper then next day... <sarcasm>not that there is a reason I descided to follow this approach or anyting - d'oh</sarcasm> 

hope I'm not forgetting someting important here :)

Good luck!

--Nate Grady

On Wed, Oct 31, 2001 at 10:03:23AM -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2001 at 11:17:21AM +0100, Rychlik, Michael wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I cannot boot build-ix86-1.0_rc6_r10.iso it crashes my machine while
> > decompressing rescue.gz after a line or so of dots is displayed. The box in
> > question is an AMD K6/266 in an ASUS P5A mobo. Award BIOS 4.5x. Voodoo 3 and
> > NE2000. 96Mb od RAM.
> > 
> > The same CD boots fine elsewhere.
> > 
> > Is it still possible to build from floppy ?
> 
> We don't have a floppy boot/build method yet.  I'm guessing that this is related
> to your BIOS, since there have been other Award BIOS problems (4.51).  But Award
> probs were supposed to be fixed in the latest isolinux release.  You may try 
> updating your BIOS if possible.
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> -- 
> Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
> Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
> Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			
> 
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