Apparent freeze during installation of system.

[globetrotterdk]

Just put sudo in front of it.

Regarding lilo.conf, it occurs to me you may as well uncomment the original stanza again. You will then be able to choose at boot whether to boot with or without the initrd, making an easy fallback if needed. Make sure the 'label' lines are different, and preferably informative.

OK, here are my new lilo.conf entries:

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# Linux bootable partition config begins
  image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/sda1
  label = Salix (original)
  read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
# This config was generated by mkinitrd_command_generator.sh
image = /boot/vmlinuz-huge-4.4.118
  initrd = /boot/initrd.gz
  root = /dev/sda1
  label = Salix (generated)
  read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

Do I need to run sudo lilo -v and reboot before I run the following?

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sudo mkinitrd -c -k 4.4.118 -f ext4 -r /dev/sda1 -m xhci-pci:ohci-pci:ehci-pci:xhci-hcd:uhci-hcd:ehci-hcd:hid:usbhid:i2c-hid:hid_generic:hid-cherry:hid-logitech:hid-logitech-dj:hid-logitech-hidpp:hid-lenovo:hid-microsoft:hid_multitouch:jbd2:mbcache:ext4 -u -o /boot/initrd.gz

OK, I ran the sudo mkinitrd script and everything looks fine. Lilo didn't like my labels, so I changed them to "Salix1" and "Salix2". Time to reboot and cross fingers!
----
Success! Many thanks mimosa

[globetrotterdk]

As laprjns wrote, I need to install the nvidia-driver 390.25 for my graphics card. This depends on the nvidia-kernel 390.25. So when I install this new kernel and driver, do I need to rerun the /usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh, or just a sudo lilo -v? I don't want to lose the hard won work on this system and lilo.conf. I don't see mention of anything else in
https://docs.salixos.org/wiki/How_to_in ... ent_kernel
but would prefer to check before I do something wrong.

[mimosa]

I have a newish GeForce GT 1030 graphics card, which I know that I will have to get the recent Nvidia blob/driver installed that will support the graphics card. So, as I believe that I will have to install a generic kernel to get the system to work at a base line level, the question is if your advice still applies.

Right now the only reason why you would need the generic kernel with an initrd is to be able to boot using UUID. nVidia binary drivers can be compiled and installed with either the kernel-huge or generic kernels. I do it with the kernel-huge out problems. Your GT 1030 will require the 390.25 driver. A report on the Slackware forum says the 390.25 driver works without problems with the 4.4.118 kernel, which is the latest updated kernel for Salix 14.2. When the time comes, I recommend that you install it using the nVidia installer script.

If you search the forum (and possibly the wiki) you should find the pointers you need. Nothing to do with what you've been doing just now. It's not a new kernel, just a kernel module.

[globetrotterdk]

If you search the forum (and possibly the wiki) you should find the pointers you need. Nothing to do with what you've been doing just now. It's not a new kernel, just a kernel module.

OK. Weirdly, the wiki doesn't have anything on Nvidia graphics cards, but I will try to search the forum. Lasly, I have been busy doing a little experiment with the drive booting issues. I identified the physical drives with Devuan and Salix installed, as well as the drive with Win 10 installed. To rule out any issues with Lilo and my motherboard BIOS, I reinstalled Devuan with Grub 2. Leaving the drives with no system installed, disconnected, I set the boot order in the BIOS as it was before this whole thread:
Devuan /dev/sda
Salix /dev/sdb
Win 10 /dev/sdc
I found out very quickly that Devuan and Salix play well together. Grub 2 finds the initrd and boots Salix without any problems. However, as soon as I connect the Win 10 drive, when I boot Salix, it goes into the panic that I have described earlier in this thread:

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<EOI> panic+0x1b7/0x1f0 (etc.)

The drive seems to be fine when I boot into Win 10, and this is clearly a BIOS, rather than Lilo issue, so can't the BIOS cope with three OS's? Very strange.
---
I finally found the HowTo Nvidia driver install, but I did it through searching through threads. There is no mention of it in the index of either the FAQ or the User Documentation. The HowTo is here:
https://docs.salixos.org/wiki/How_to_In ... DIA_driver

[mimosa]

Have you tried booting Salix using the UUID, as was the intention of using an initrd?

[globetrotterdk]

I will try installing Lilo again with Devuan and see how that works out. However, I should mention that I have been fighting to get Lilo to install on a Dell Vostro 3350 dual boot with Win 10, and I first succeeded when I got so fed up that I trashed the Win 10 partitions (we are of course talking about a single hard disk, rather than in the case of my other computer, which has a separate OS per hard disk) and reformatted the whole thing only for Salix. Before that, the installer kept freezing when trying to install Lilo. My concern is that Win 10 is somehow screwing with the BIOS's on my computers and functionality with Lilo. Installing Grub seems unaffected.
----
While my tower computer has a modern, UEFI BIOS, the laptop doesn't. Yet, a similar problem. I talked to someone tonight that works with coding hardware as a profession. His opinion was that neither a BIOS nor hard disk could do anything like I described. His opinion was that something was happening with the bootloader handoff to the kernel, to cause the <EOI> panics. I am unsure what, but it seems clear to me that Win 10 has some role to play with the Lilo freezes as well. I am considering implementing UEFI on my tower computer and re-installing all OS's, but I have never experienced any problems with the number of drives and/or the installed OS's on any motherboard before. Likewise the problem with the laptop nags me, so I am unsure if implementing UEFI and reinstalling OS's is a viable solution to determine what is going on.

[globetrotterdk]

The latest news is that I have reset my motherboard BIOS to UEFI defaults and reinstalled Devuan. It was a surprise to find that there was no Lilo boot
loader install possible. My Salix system still boots up in UEFI from the Devuan installed Grub2 boot loader, without a reinstall for UEFI. I am now considering just installing a Salix system with no Devuan to use for a while, but I noticed that Devuan setup uses a modified partition setup that is based on something called ESP, while the HowTo that I have found suggests that Salix uses something called GPT in connection with UEFI. However, there seems to still be some form of Lilo that can get installed as a boot loader eLilo (?).

[mimosa]

Since as it seems everything works, perhaps there is nothing to fix. But if you want to try booting with elilo and Salix, just reinstall it. Upgrade the kernel and all packages as before (probably no need to bother with an initrd). You will only be able to boot Salix. Install rEFInd:

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sudo spi -i refind

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

Reboot. You should be able to boot all your OSs, and any other media you insert (press Esc to refresh the list).

Note that when upgrading the kernel on a system that boots with EFI, you need to run eliloconfig rather than lilo, before rebooting. Please see the wiki page.

You may also find this of interest:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind ... p/download


... and this:
https://fossbytes.com/uefi-bios-gpt-mbr ... ifference/