Salix Forums

Hello Experts
I am here after lot of advice to experience Salix. Note: I am beginner.
I am hit with a road block in the very beginning. I need help.
The problem:
I installed the Salix-Lxde-13.3.7 in the same mount as existing ubuntu and instructed to do quick format.
Did not install Lilo as I was scared reading the content. I thought the existing grub should work as Lilo description sounded like a optional.
But ....
After coming out of creating users, the system rebooted but has nothing after Grub loading. Error: file not found grub rescue>.

Note: This is on boot, so no internet.
Please help

Note: I am editing to give more information, I re-installed again with Lilo but still struck on grub rescue prompt.
My system config: Intel Pentium M, Processor: 1.73 GHz, 1.24 GB RAM. 40GB capacity with 20 db each for windows and now want Linux in other partition.
My graphics card details are:
Card name: Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family
Display Memory: 128.0 MB

---------- Still could not convey enough to get help so will this help to get some help -------------------
My grub is here.

=> Grub2 (v1.97-1.9 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector
1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and
looks in partition 5 for /boot/grub.
=> Syslinux MBR (3.61-4.03) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb.
=> No known boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdc.

I tried the following commands
1. Set command showed me that it is in right prefix (hd0,5)/boot/grub.
2. insmod (hd0,5)/boot/grub/linux.mod => error file not found. ( how to resolve this?)
3. insmod ext 4 O ==> error file not found. ( how to resolve this?)
4. insmod gzio ==> error file not found. ( how to resolve this?)
5. linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-1-686-pae root=/dev/sdXX ro ==> "Unknown command "linux'
same as with boot.

Any help would be much appreciated to go to next level of seeing Salix os working.

As of now I have reinstalled ubuntu and got back to working system. If someone helps me to find a way out in Salix, I would be happy to give a try. The difference between Ubuntu and Salix in install is this.
Ubuntu prompts a manual or other ways to install, select manual it scans the partitions and prompts user to select the drive/mount and once selected, modify to select the file type, format options and mount which creates the root file and rest is magic.
But in Salix I have seen such messages but unfortunately not translating to create the right grub file to continue. If some one helps me then I will be very much interested to try Salix and experience it. Thank you very much.
Thanks in Advance
p

Not sure if this will complicate matters more for you or not.

I eliminated the MBR totally and used this http://gag.sourceforge.net/
I found it more flexible than the MBR with less problems regarding LILO,Grub2,etc
Worth sucking to see ?

Edit PS - its easy enough to reinstall MBR with a number of tools like FDisk,etc,,just search for best options

edit PPS- ive always found installations to be happier with a preformatted disk than overwriting,less chance of 'dust on the needle'

It sounds like you formatted/overwrote/deleted your Ubuntu installation (I hope intentionally. ). That means you also overwrote part of Ubuntu's grub which resides in the /boot/grub directory. Therefor that installation of grub is not anymore able to boot. Here are some suggestions to fix it:

• Boot from the installation cd and exit the installer. Then run this (whereas sdXY is the device of your Salix root partition):

  Code: Select all

  mount /dev/sdXY /mnt
  mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
  mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
  mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
  chroot /mnt liloconfig

• Boot from Salix Live and launch lilosetup, which is a GUI frontend for setting up lilo
• Install grub(2) similarly to the first method.

The second solution is probably easiest and I would recommend it to you. Didn't try the firstone so I can only be fairly sure that every command is right to the letter.

protocoder wrote:Did not install Lilo as I was scared reading the content. I thought the existing grub should work as Lilo description sounded like a optional.

A bootloader does not automagically know what to boot and how to do that. So unless some installer sets it up for you automatically (lilo step) or you configure it manually, nothing is going to work.

I eliminated the MBR totally and used this http://gag.sourceforge.net/
I found it more flexible than the MBR with less problems regarding LILO,Grub2,etc

You eliminated the MBR loader or whatever other bootloader was there. Just 440Bytes of the MBR are reserved for bootloaders. The remaining 112Bytes contain the partition table among other stuff which you wouldn't want to eliminate.
Typically the MBR just contains a short piece of code or very simple bootloader that searches for the active partition and loads the other bootloader stored there. However, that code is replaced by both lilo and grub. For lilo the whole bootloader is contained in there with grub2 just a very minimal image loading the other parts.

Thanks Shador

There you go Protocoder

As you can see as you learn more experience ..
There is someone who is grasping at straws (Me)
And someone who totally knows what they are talking about (Shador)
It is a lesson worth noting

And good luck with Salix and everything

Incidentally,MBR's are susceptable to rootkit viruses.

Does anyone know if Gag or similar alternative bootloaders more secure as a rule?

deja69 wrote:Incidentally,MBR's are susceptable to rootkit viruses.

Does anyone know if Gag or similar alternative bootloaders more secure as a rule?

Not at all. The only measure you can take is preventing the MBR to be written to which is almost impossible. Another solution is TPM but we know how that correlates with FOSS.

I don't think you've understood what the MBR is though. It's just a name for the first block of a disk that uses the msdos partition table. That block is 512Bytes in size and contains the partition table and some other information. Apart from that the very first 440Bytes are reserved for bootloaders. When your computer starts and encounters a msdos partitioned disk as the boot device it just loads those 440Bytes into memory and starts executing them. No matter what bootloader or other code is in there, it's executed and the first 512Bytes are always called MBR (unless of course you choose a different partition table like gpt). Other partition tables are not more safe to such attacks either. They use different mechanisms to boot like an EFI partition, but without additional precautions you can just exchange the bootloader as easily too.

Hmm,thanks again Shador

It is just on my pre-installed Windows Vaio,i would have thought those nice people at Microsoft and Sony wrote the MBR,and from the veiwpoint of totally FOSSing my box,it seems the MBR is a point of weakness.

The GAG website implies the program is a complete replacement for MBR,ive installed LILO within the GAG bootloader and all seems clean and tidy.No problems.

Are you saying my set up is actually MBR+GAG+LILO?

Hello Shador, deja69,

Thank you very much. With the confidence that Ubuntu live USB will bring my windows back, I downloaded yesterday the salix live lxde. I got that working and was impressed with the screenshot but honestly yet to explore a lot.
I used that live to install to the system and this time lilo asked me all the good questions and salix is up and running.

Not sue why only install cd did not do the same thing.
@shador I did follow exactly same steps albeit the live cd install is graphical and and works as checkpoint list kind of things.. nevertheless I followed same stuff pointed to sda5 which was my earlier ubuntu place, asked to format, used ext4 and when when I did install lilo using only install cd, it did not ask me more than a screen of yes or no but live install cd made me feel that Lilo is doing something. Once lilo was successful I could able to install well.

1.
Now I am struck in the same situation I was looking for other distributions.. ndiswrapper does not recognize the hardware when I point to same inf file which I copied from the windows drivers. I ensured I did blacklist b43,bcm43xx etc. I still do not get connected to net. Please can some one pass me the relevant driver for BCM4311, chipset id 14e4:4319 (rev o2) please.

2. Is there a way I can skip the prompts of login and password please. I am lone user in home so I would like to switch on and have all ready. I used to configure like that in Ubuntu9.10.

3. I am using full version, is it just my observation that boot time is same or may be little longer than Ubuntu9.10 .. Is there something I can do about it.

Thanks a ton.
Protocoder

protocoder wrote:Not sue why only install cd did not do the same thing.

It did, but you said no and we respect your no.

protocoder wrote:it did not ask me more than a screen of yes or no but live install cd made me feel that Lilo is doing something

Yes, it's doing something. Otherwise there wouldn't be much use in having it. Anyway the CLI installer might be somewhat more intimidating as it's actually just a modified Slackware installer. For additional user-friendliness there's the live installer.
What exactly was the problem for you?

BTW, actually just launching lilosetup (it's on the desktop I think, but definitely in the applications menu) would have been enough too.

protocoder wrote:Now I am struck in the same situation I was looking for other distributions.. ndiswrapper does not recognize the hardware when I point to same inf file which I copied from the windows drivers. I ensured I did blacklist b43,bcm43xx etc. I still do not get connected to net. Please can some one pass me the relevant driver for BCM4311, chipset id 14e4:4319 (rev o2) please.

According to this page your chipset should be supported by the native b43 linux driver: http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drive ... ed_devices
So why not use that driver? It does not work out of the box because broadcom doesn't permit to redistribute the firmware. Therefor we are not allowed to include it in our installation images or make it otherwise available. But you can download and install it yourself. Just redistribution is not permitted.
Here are the instructions that should get your wireless up and running: http://www.salixos.org/wiki/index.php/H ... less_cards

Don't forget to at least unblacklist the b43 driver!

protocoder wrote: 2. Is there a way I can skip the prompts of login and password please. I am lone user in home so I would like to switch on and have all ready. I used to configure like that in Ubuntu9.10.

I guess you've got GDM as login manager. There's a menu entry somewhere under Settings or System for configuring the login (manager), I think. I'm not at a Salix box atm so can't check the exact location.
If you start that application you should be able to simply change the relevant setting.

protocoder wrote:3. I am using full version, is it just my observation that boot time is same or may be little longer than Ubuntu9.10 .. Is there something I can do about it.

Possibly. Not sure whether 9.10 uses systemd already. That makes a huge difference but I don't expect Slackware to adopt it any time soon. Apart from that I think Ubuntu uses dash to execute the startup scripts. That can make some difference too but can cause some incompatibilities as well. So that's not a change you can simply make either.
The one or other seconds can be gained by some minor tweaks to the startup scripts, but I wouldn't recommend those unless you know what you're doing.

Good you finally managed to make it work

For 1. Sorry I don't know, but could you please open another thread/topic for this problem. It will be easier to read and if another have the same chipset as you it will find the post usefull in its own thread. Thank you.

For 2. Yes, click on "Parameters" => "Login Window" => "Security" => "Activate automatic connection" and specify you user name. That's all.

For 3. You probably can do some things...but you must know what to do, like deactivate some services you don't use. But the Slackware boot is not the same as the one Ubuntu uses: no parrallel starting are done for example.