586 AMD freeze or reboot after when Booting the Kernel

[srmarchi]

Hello all,

I'm a newbie Linux user and this is the first time on the forum, I'm not sure I posting in the right thread.

I'm trying to bring back to life an old 586 Amd and TCL is a good choice for OS.
I've tried all versions 5.1 through 11.0 and all versions freeze or reboot after the message: "Booting the Kernel" with no error message.
I have tried some bootcodes but no success yet.

I would like to know if you have how to show or save the log execution or enable to show the error message.

586 AMD SIS
48MB RAM
2MB Video Trident
CF Adapter with 256MB flash card

Every help is welcome!

Thank you!

[curaga]

If the kernel fails to boot, there is no way to save logs. The earlyprintk options may let you see some messages.

[jazzbiker]

Hi, srmarchi!

As You mentioned, that You are new to Linux, I assume, that You wrote the TinyCore to SD card using Windows? Is there an option to write CD disk? What versions (TinyCore, TinyCorePLus, Core) have You tried?
By the way, there are even earlier versions, for example 4.7.7. Your machine is quite aged, so why not to try.

Good luck!

[srmarchi]

As You mentioned, that You are new to Linux, I assume, that You wrote the TinyCore to SD card using Windows? Is there an option to write CD disk? What versions (TinyCore, TinyCorePLus, Core) have You tried?
By the way, there are even earlier versions, for example 4.7.7. Your machine is quite aged, so why not to try.

Thank you jazzbiker and curaga!

Yes, I used the Universal USB Installer on Windows and its work well, the same SD card with TC 11.0 runs perfectly in the Pentium 4.
I'm just trying with TinyCore.

Good tip about version.
 

[jazzbiker]

Of course I am not insisting, but working OK on P4, the same card may refuse to work properly on the old BIOS. That's why I mentioned CD. By the way, in the first post You talked about CF card. Is it really CF or SD?
Have Your box any hard drive? I think You will be very limited in possible tasks without swap.
P.S. Current TC version is 11.1

[srmarchi]

I got your point. But I'm afraid the BIOS has no CD boot option.
My mistake, I'm using a CF to IDE adaptor and no hard drive.
Yeah, very limited...
But I won't stop yet, because I saw a 486 running TC GUI 8.2.1 with only 40MB RAM

[Rich]

Hi srmarchi

... all versions freeze or reboot after the message: "Booting the Kernel" with no error message. ...

Find the  syslinux.cfg  file on your  CF  card. Add the following to the end of the line containing the word  quiet :

Code: [Select]

debug waitusb=5You should now see kernel messages displayed when you boot. Maybe the messages displayed at the point it freezes
will be of some help.

[jazzbiker]

Hi, guys!

No boot from CD in old machine? Never seen anything alike. Maybe no internal CD drive? Maybe Your box have floppy??? 8-0 Just wondering. If You are talking about IDE-CF adapter - heh, I've found such an artefact in the museum ) Even a pair of them of different  kinds. First is just mini-IDE and CF connectors crossover. And my memory prompts, that it was really  functioning just upon a time. But for some reason I've added SMD ceramic capacitor blocking power lines. The second is controller card with two chips and and obviously was too slow to work as system drive.
So if You got such an adapter (I mean the first one), Your system see it as the hard drive, right? Was Your adapter successfully functioning before?

[polikuo]

Hi, srmarchi.
Welcome to the forum.

It sounds like the bootloader is failing.

Do you have any spare IDE hard drive ?

Usually, mother boards don't recognize adapters when booting.

If you do have a drive, install the system on that with tc-install/tc-install-GUI on your Pentium 4 environment.

[srmarchi]

Find the  syslinux.cfg  file on your  CF  card. Add the following to the end of the line containing the word  quiet :

Code: [Select]

debug waitusb=5

Hello Rich,
I added the code but the result was the same...

No boot from CD in old machine? Never seen anything alike. Maybe no internal CD drive? Maybe Your box have floppy??? 8-0 Just wondering.

Hello jazzbiker,
The 586 has 25 year old (also came from museum  , I may be forgetting something... just has boot by A e C drives... Mouse serial,  no USB and one floppy unit. It has IDE auto detect and CF adpater is recognized by BIOS.

Welcome to the forum.
It sounds like the bootloader is failing.

Thank you polikuo!
I'm not sure about that, because using MS-DOS it runs very well.


I believe there is something wrong with the format of the CF card, perhaps MBR or file system (some flag?), because MS-DOS works well and TC loads vmlinux and core before crashing, I think if the adapter is the problem, it will not load in no situations.


Thank you guys!

 

[polikuo]

I believe there is something wrong with the format of the CF card, perhaps MBR or file system (some flag?), because MS-DOS works well and TC loads vmlinux and core before crashing, I think if the adapter is the problem, it will not load in no situations.

How about re-install the system on the CF card within your P4 machine ?

Boot with boot code "base"

tce-load -wil tc-install

Install the system from the net

[jazzbiker]

Double this.

[srmarchi]

Hi guys!

I did the re-install as polikuo suggested and I got the same result: using vfat it freezes at bootloader and ext2 reboot after load the core.gz.
Additional I tried boot codes vga=1 and debug but no news.
I'm suspect about partitions and I have doubt about which format I can use (fat16, fat32 and ext2).

[curaga]

It's not a disk/partition issue, the kernel is hanging.

[jazzbiker]

Hi, srmarchi!

It's strange that behavior depends on the file system type... What TC version have You tried during this failed attempt?
You didn't confirmed what type is Your CF adapter - chipless crossover or some sort of controller card?
Is it possible to try with HD drive to exclude CF failure?