[gentoo-user] Dual boot questions

[gentoo-user] Dual boot questions

[Mark Knecht]

Hi all,
   I have a long running Windows machine that I had previously
attempted to make duel boot using the Windows boot loader mostly as an
experiment. It's not my first dual boot. I've got 4 others that use
grub and they all work fine. This machine, however, never did boot
Linux and as it wasn't a high priority I just let it go and ran
Windows on it as needed. However I now need to get it running and want
to switch it over to grub as I doubt I'll be running windows on it
very much in the future so I have a few questions.

   The first problem I ran into on this machine was that immediately
after finds my kernel and starts booting I get maybe 1 or 2 lines that
are good but then the screen becomes unreadable. The text characters
are highly garbled and there are columns of dots all over the screen.
The card is an NVidia NV18 GeForce4 MX 400.

   Is there possibly a boot line option to get the system to write
these characters cleanly?

   The second problem is that after the boot gets started I get a
kernel panic. As background the disk layout of this machine, as viewed
from within Linux booted from an install CD, looks roughly like this:

/dev/hde1 * Blocks=1-3824        ID=7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hde2   Blocks=3825-19457 ID=5 Extended
/dev/hde5   Blocks=3825-3837   ID=83 Linux
/dev/hde6   Blocks=3838-4020   ID=83 Linux
/dev/hde7   Blocks=4021-7668   ID=83 Linux
/dev/hde8   Blocks=7669-10218 ID=7 HPFS/NTFS

   The last NTSF partition is just data.

   The Linux partitions should be boot, swap and the system, in that
order. I wanted to double check that I could load grub and stop using
the Windows boot loader by using something like these commands:

grub> root (hd0,6)
grub> setup (hd0)

   Also, do I need to make /dev/hde5 bootable in fdisk? I think it's
onot strictly required for grub but I might as well ask.

   The machine is going to run Gentoo for the foreseeable future and
I'd prefer to use grub long term. However I don't want to completely
mess up or get rid of the Windows install until I'm confident I've
really finished with it for good.

Thanks in advance,
Mark
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Re: [gentoo-user] Dual boot questions

[Mick]

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On Sunday 17 June 2007 17:49, Mark Knecht wrote:

>    The first problem I ran into on this machine was that immediately
> after finds my kernel and starts booting I get maybe 1 or 2 lines that
> are good but then the screen becomes unreadable. The text characters
> are highly garbled and there are columns of dots all over the screen.
> The card is an NVidia NV18 GeForce4 MX 400.

That sounds like a framebuffer issue.  Are you passing the correct options to 
your framebuffer on the boot line?

>    Is there possibly a boot line option to get the system to write
> these characters cleanly?

You need to define the correct for your monitor resolution at the boot line.

>    The second problem is that after the boot gets started I get a
> kernel panic. 

This is probably a badly configured kernel/hardware driver issue.

> As background the disk layout of this machine, as viewed 
> from within Linux booted from an install CD, looks roughly like this:
>
> /dev/hde1 * Blocks=1-3824        ID=7 HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/hde2   Blocks=3825-19457 ID=5 Extended
> /dev/hde5   Blocks=3825-3837   ID=83 Linux
> /dev/hde6   Blocks=3838-4020   ID=83 Linux
> /dev/hde7   Blocks=4021-7668   ID=83 Linux
> /dev/hde8   Blocks=7669-10218 ID=7 HPFS/NTFS
>
>    The last NTSF partition is just data.
>
>    The Linux partitions should be boot, swap and the system, in that
> order. I wanted to double check that I could load grub and stop using
> the Windows boot loader by using something like these commands:
>
> grub> root (hd0,6)

If you have your /boot on /dev/hde5, then you should point grub's root to 
(hd0,4).

The fact that your hard drive is shown as /dev/hde as opposed to /dev/hda 
makes me think that the hd0 part may also not be correct.  
Check /boot/grub/device.map to see what's pointing where and also use tab 
completion when you run grub from the command line to find out what grub is 
seeing first in terms of hard disks.

> grub> setup (hd0)

This is fine only if hd0 is /dev/hde.

>    Also, do I need to make /dev/hde5 bootable in fdisk? I think it's
> onot strictly required for grub but I might as well ask.

No, because Linux does not need the boot flag to know which partition to boot.  
Windows on the other hand does, especially so when there is a second Windows 
OS on the disk.

>    The machine is going to run Gentoo for the foreseeable future and
> I'd prefer to use grub long term. However I don't want to completely
> mess up or get rid of the Windows install until I'm confident I've
> really finished with it for good.

You can set Gentoo to be your default boot OS in your grub.conf.

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Dual boot questions

[Mark Knecht]

On 6/17/07, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sunday 17 June 2007 17:49, Mark Knecht wrote:
>
> >    The first problem I ran into on this machine was that immediately
> > after finds my kernel and starts booting I get maybe 1 or 2 lines that
> > are good but then the screen becomes unreadable. The text characters
> > are highly garbled and there are columns of dots all over the screen.
> > The card is an NVidia NV18 GeForce4 MX 400.
>
> That sounds like a framebuffer issue.  Are you passing the correct options to
> your framebuffer on the boot line?

Actually I don't believe I enabled frame buffer or didn't mean to.
I'll take a look at that. With the install CD I have to boot with
gentoo-nofb to even try to do the install. The frame buffer boot just
goes to a black graphics screen and then I never see anything.

This set of problems didn't exist on older Gentoo install disks, circa
2005. I used to have Linux on this box and had no problems with the
install. The newer install disks are causing the headaches.

<SNIP>
>
> >    The second problem is that after the boot gets started I get a
> > kernel panic.
>
> This is probably a badly configured kernel/hardware driver issue.

Agreed. I think the kernel panic is saying it cannot find the drive
but the text is so mangled I cannot read it to make any adjustments.
<SNIP>
> >
> > grub> root (hd0,6)
>
> If you have your /boot on /dev/hde5, then you should point grub's root to
> (hd0,4).

Ah...root (hd0,4) points to /boot, not /root. OK, thanks.

>
> The fact that your hard drive is shown as /dev/hde as opposed to /dev/hda
> makes me think that the hd0 part may also not be correct.
> Check /boot/grub/device.map to see what's pointing where and also use tab
> completion when you run grub from the command line to find out what grub is
> seeing first in terms of hard disks.
>
> > grub> setup (hd0)
>
> This is fine only if hd0 is /dev/hde.

The machine is an Asus MB with multiple hard drive controllers.
hda-hdd are the controllers built into the chipset. hde-hdh are
supposed to be the secondary external HD controller.

I do remember a Fedora kernel years ago switching these controllers
around at times however the Gentoo install CD mounts the existing
partitions using commands like

mount /dev/hde7 /mnt/gentoo/
mount /dev/hde5 /mnt/gentoo/boot

etc., so at least under that kernel they are definately /dev/hde.

I want to get this boot screen readability problem solved first so I
can really see what the problem is befor I make any major changes.

thanks,
Mark
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Re: [gentoo-user] Dual boot questions

[Florian Philipp]

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Am Sonntag 17 Juni 2007 18:49 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> Hi all,
>    I have a long running Windows machine that I had previously
> attempted to make duel boot using the Windows boot loader mostly as an
> experiment. It's not my first dual boot. I've got 4 others that use
> grub and they all work fine. This machine, however, never did boot
> Linux and as it wasn't a high priority I just let it go and ran
> Windows on it as needed. However I now need to get it running and want
> to switch it over to grub as I doubt I'll be running windows on it
> very much in the future so I have a few questions.
>
>    The first problem I ran into on this machine was that immediately
> after finds my kernel and starts booting I get maybe 1 or 2 lines that
> are good but then the screen becomes unreadable. The text characters
> are highly garbled and there are columns of dots all over the screen.
> The card is an NVidia NV18 GeForce4 MX 400.
>
>    Is there possibly a boot line option to get the system to write
> these characters cleanly?
>
>    The second problem is that after the boot gets started I get a
> kernel panic. As background the disk layout of this machine, as viewed
> from within Linux booted from an install CD, looks roughly like this:
>
> /dev/hde1 * Blocks=1-3824        ID=7 HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/hde2   Blocks=3825-19457 ID=5 Extended
> /dev/hde5   Blocks=3825-3837   ID=83 Linux
> /dev/hde6   Blocks=3838-4020   ID=83 Linux
> /dev/hde7   Blocks=4021-7668   ID=83 Linux
> /dev/hde8   Blocks=7669-10218 ID=7 HPFS/NTFS
>
>    The last NTSF partition is just data.
>
>    The Linux partitions should be boot, swap and the system, in that
> order. I wanted to double check that I could load grub and stop using
> the Windows boot loader by using something like these commands:
>

If /dev/hde6 is your swap, shouldn't it have the ID 82 (Linux swap / Solaris)?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Dual boot questions

[Dirk Heinrichs]

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Am Montag, 18. Juni 2007 schrieb ext Florian Philipp:

> If /dev/hde6 is your swap, shouldn't it have the ID 82 (Linux swap /
> Solaris)?

ID's don't matter (at least for Linux).

Bye...

	Dirk
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