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Rich Shepard | 2 Aug 2011 22:10
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Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

   Just before leaving for a client meeting this morning I ran 'slackpkg
update; slackpkg upgrade-all' on my portable running Slackware64-13.37.
Kernel packages were upgraded, too. At the end of the process I was asked if
I wanted the script to run lilo for me; I answered 'y'; waited for the shell
prompt, shut down, and headed to my meeting.

   At the meeting the LILO boot screen displayed, along with a message that
the kernel was too big (I didn't write it all down as it was inappropriate),
but when I tried to continue, nothing happened. Since then when I turn on
the power I don't see even the LILO boot screen.

   I assume that that /boot has the new huge kernel as vmlinuz and
/etc/lilo.conf has something different. Is there a way to use the Slackware
distribution disk, or something I can copy on a USB flash drive from my
server/workstation (running 32-bit 13.1) to boot and correc the problem on
the portable?

   If not, I suppose that I need to get a knoppix or ubuntu boot disk and
work from that. I've not before let a script change lilo.conf or the
softlinks in /boot; now I know to not do so in the future.

Rich
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Ottavio | 2 Aug 2011 22:25
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Re: Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

On 2 August 2011 21:10, Rich Shepard <rshepard <at> appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
>  Just before leaving for a client meeting this morning I ran 'slackpkg
> update; slackpkg upgrade-all' on my portable running Slackware64-13.37.
> Kernel packages were upgraded, too. At the end of the process I was asked if
> I wanted the script to run lilo for me; I answered 'y'; waited for the shell
> prompt, shut down, and headed to my meeting.
>
>  At the meeting the LILO boot screen displayed, along with a message that
> the kernel was too big (I didn't write it all down as it was inappropriate),
> but when I tried to continue, nothing happened. Since then when I turn on
> the power I don't see even the LILO boot screen.
>
>  I assume that that /boot has the new huge kernel as vmlinuz and
> /etc/lilo.conf has something different. Is there a way to use the Slackware
> distribution disk, or something I can copy on a USB flash drive from my
> server/workstation (running 32-bit 13.1) to boot and correc the problem on
> the portable?
>
>  If not, I suppose that I need to get a knoppix or ubuntu boot disk and
> work from that. I've not before let a script change lilo.conf or the
> softlinks in /boot; now I know to not do so in the future.

Check my previous thread "System unbootable after kernel update" on
this mailing list (22 march). Eventually I solved it by booting from
Slackware installation CD and rerunning pkgtool.

--

-- 
Ottavio

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
(Continue reading)

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Jostein Berntsen | 2 Aug 2011 22:34
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Re: Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

On 02.08.11,13:10, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   Just before leaving for a client meeting this morning I ran 'slackpkg
> update; slackpkg upgrade-all' on my portable running Slackware64-13.37.
> Kernel packages were upgraded, too. At the end of the process I was asked if
> I wanted the script to run lilo for me; I answered 'y'; waited for the shell
> prompt, shut down, and headed to my meeting.
> 
>   At the meeting the LILO boot screen displayed, along with a message that
> the kernel was too big (I didn't write it all down as it was inappropriate),
> but when I tried to continue, nothing happened. Since then when I turn on
> the power I don't see even the LILO boot screen.
> 
>   I assume that that /boot has the new huge kernel as vmlinuz and
> /etc/lilo.conf has something different. Is there a way to use the Slackware
> distribution disk, or something I can copy on a USB flash drive from my
> server/workstation (running 32-bit 13.1) to boot and correc the problem on
> the portable?
> 
>   If not, I suppose that I need to get a knoppix or ubuntu boot disk and
> work from that. I've not before let a script change lilo.conf or the
> softlinks in /boot; now I know to not do so in the future.
> 
>

You can do this if you have the Slackware distribution disk:

http://blog.tpa.me.uk/2009/09/29/re-installing-lilo-from-a-slackware-boot-cd/

Then try to run mkinitrd before you reboot.
(Continue reading)

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Rich Shepard | 2 Aug 2011 22:38
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Re: Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

On Tue, 2 Aug 2011, Ottavio wrote:

> Check my previous thread "System unbootable after kernel update" on this
> mailing list (22 march). Eventually I solved it by booting from Slackware
> installation CD and rerunning pkgtool.

Ottavio,

   I'll certainly read the thread and follow what worked for you. Thank you
very much.

Rich
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Rich Shepard | 2 Aug 2011 22:40
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Re: Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

On Tue, 2 Aug 2011, Jostein Berntsen wrote:

> You can do this if you have the Slackware distribution disk:
>
> http://blog.tpa.me.uk/2009/09/29/re-installing-lilo-from-a-slackware-boot-cd/
>
> Then try to run mkinitrd before you reboot.
>
> You can also check if the symlink to the kernel is correct as suggested at the
> end of this article:
>
> http://www.basicconfig.com/linux/slackpkg

Jostein,

   This looks worth doing before Ottavio's approach.

   Thank you both. I'll let you know results tomorrow.

Rich
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Ottavio | 2 Aug 2011 22:54
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Re: Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

On 2 August 2011 21:40, Rich Shepard <rshepard <at> appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
> Jostein,
>
>  This looks worth doing before Ottavio's approach.

Now I feel discriminated...

--

-- 
Ottavio

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
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Rich Shepard | 3 Aug 2011 20:17
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Re: Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

On Tue, 2 Aug 2011, Jostein Berntsen wrote:

> You can do this if you have the Slackware distribution disk:
> http://blog.tpa.me.uk/2009/09/29/re-installing-lilo-from-a-slackware-boot-cd/

Jonstein,

   This lets me set up a chroot jail, but I cannot list the files in /boot.
It shows nothing in that directory so ...

> You can also check if the symlink to the kernel is correct as suggested at the
> end of this article:
>
> http://www.basicconfig.com/linux/slackpkg

   When I try setting /etc/lilo.conf's boot stanza to

image=/boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-2.6.37.6-smp

and try running /sbin/lilo I'm told that image does not exist. Checkmate?

   If I cannot tell what boot images are in /boot, how to I change lilo.conf
to point to a working kernel?

Rich
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Rich Shepard | 3 Aug 2011 20:30
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Re: Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

On Wed, 3 Aug 2011, Rich Shepard wrote:

>  If I cannot tell what boot images are in /boot, how to I change lilo.conf
> to point to a working kernel?

   Is it possible that all files in /boot were wiped out when I told slackpkg
to run /sbin/lilo? I can see files in /dev/, /home/, and other directories,
but nothing in /boot. Strange.

Rich
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Jostein Berntsen | 3 Aug 2011 23:34
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Re: Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

On 03.08.11,11:17, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Aug 2011, Jostein Berntsen wrote:
> 
> >You can do this if you have the Slackware distribution disk:
> >http://blog.tpa.me.uk/2009/09/29/re-installing-lilo-from-a-slackware-boot-cd/
> 
> Jonstein,
> 
>   This lets me set up a chroot jail, but I cannot list the files in /boot.
> It shows nothing in that directory so ...
> 
> >You can also check if the symlink to the kernel is correct as suggested at the
> >end of this article:
> >
> >http://www.basicconfig.com/linux/slackpkg
> 
>   When I try setting /etc/lilo.conf's boot stanza to
> 
> image=/boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-2.6.37.6-smp
> 
> and try running /sbin/lilo I'm told that image does not exist. Checkmate?
> 
>   If I cannot tell what boot images are in /boot, how to I change lilo.conf
> to point to a working kernel?
> 

Have you mounted /boot as well?

mount --bind /boot /foo/boot
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Rich Shepard | 4 Aug 2011 00:04
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Re: Recovering With Slackware from Slackpkg Upgrade

On Wed, 3 Aug 2011, Jostein Berntsen wrote:

> Have you mounted /boot as well?

Jostein,

   I am suitably chastised. Sometimes my brain freezes and doesn't see the
obvious.

> mount --bind /boot /foo/boot

   In my case it is 'mount /dev/sda2 /foo/boot' and it allowed me to fix the
softlinks in /boot, revise /etc/lilo.conf, run /sbin/lilo, and recover the
system.

   My grateful thanks to you and Ottavio for your patient guidance and help.
Knowing how to recover a Slackware system using the distribution disk is
valuable new information.

   Now there's a new problem when rebooting. During the boot process, right
after the display shows

EXT3-fs (sda2): mounted file system with ordered data mode
ERROR: no /sbin/init found on rootdev (or not mounted). Trouble ahead. You
can try to fix it. Type 'exit' when things are done.

/bin/sh: can't access tty: job control turned off.

   There is /sbin/init, but trying to invoke it from the command line fails:
(Continue reading)

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Gmane