From: Brian Downing (brian@dsm.fordham.edu)
Date: 04/04/93


From: brian@dsm.fordham.edu (Brian Downing)
Subject: [SLS:INSTALL] New kernel floppy only/always causes reboot
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1993 14:00:52 GMT


  Hello Linux Netlanders,

  My SLS install seems to go fine except: after I reboot using the
  newly created kernel floppy it simply causes a reboot. This happens
  recursively ;)
  I repeated the install, the second time telling the install script
  that I did not have a mouse or modem. This created another kernel
  floppy that also only reboots.

  Stats:
  486DX-33 EISA, i.e. a Hauppauge 4860 with a missing i860 chip.
  8M RAM, 120M WD Caviar 2120 HD.
  AMI EISA BIOS, Portacom Eclipse graphics accelerator (S3).

  Story:
  I downloaded the most recent (mid March) SLS distribution from
  sunsite. I ftp'd using the get <dir>.tar.Z command so that
  foreach dir [a-zA-Z]1-[a-zA-Z]N would create tar files containing
  all of the files in each dir. Each tar contained and error because
  the last file written to the tar wasn't blocked so an 'unexpected
  EOF' error occured once for each dir.tar.Z.
  I DOUBT that this would cause my problems, and I know I should write
  sunsite but I just wanted to mention it because it is a factor
  concerning the integrity of the distribution I stared with.
 
  I used fdisk to delete ms-dog and make two new partitions.
  /dev/hda1 001-799 for linux OS using extfs
  /dev/hda2 800-872 for linux swap using swap

 I set the boot '*' flag on /dev/hda1

 Then,
 mke2fs /dev/hda1 BLOCKS (I don't recall the exact count)
 doinstall /dev/hda1 BLOCKS

 When doinstall asked I told it I had a modem on com2 and a Mouse
 Systems mouse on com1, as well as a 486DX. It created a supposedly
 bootable floppy. As I mentioned, it only reboots.

 I repeated this forcing doinstall to quit installing packages and
 only to make a new floppy. The second time I told it I had no mouse
 and no modem with the same results.

 Any suggestions? I'm not new to UNIX but I am new to kernel hacking
 and low level systems type stuff.

 THANKS!!