Installation fails on Pentium MMX laptop

[rodders]

Newbie here so be gentle.
I recently dug out an old laptop I've had for years and thought it would be nice to get linux up and running instead of the horrid Windows Me.
Its a Pentium MMX machine running at 166MHz with 64MB of RAM
TCL seemed to be the best candidate so I downloaded coreplus v17.0 and burned it to a CD with imgBurn.
The laptop can't natively boot from a CD so I also downloaded Plop which booted it just fine.
The problem is that whatever I select from the menu TCL fails to boot linux with "Kernel panic - not syncing: No working init found"
Could it be that the CD is corrupted (it verified OK) or is there something else going on?
Do I need to partition/format the HDD first?

[Rich]

Hi rodders
Welcome to the forum.

... Do I need to partition/format the HDD first?

No, absolutely not.

... The problem is that whatever I select from the menu TCL fails to boot linux with "Kernel panic - not syncing: ...

It sounds like it's not finding the initrd (core.gz) which contains
the file system.

... No working init found" ...

There is a script called  init  in the root directory of the file system.
It's possible the CD is not visible as an actual device yet.
Try hitting  Tab  when the TCL menu comes up and adding:

Code: [Select]

waitusb=10to the line that contains the word  quiet.

It's also possible  Plop  is not set up correctly. I've never used it but
I know some other members have. Maybe one of them will chime in.

[rodders]

Thanks Rich,

It sounds like it's not finding the initrd (core.gz) which contains the file system.

Its finding core.gz ok and decompressing the kernel but it fails when trying to load vmlinuz

There is a script called  init  in the root directory of the file system.
It's possible the CD is not visible as an actual device yet.

I think you have hit the nail on the head, once it tries to load the kernel the CD indicator goes off so I'm guessing its lost the cdrom driver.

Try hitting  Tab  when the TCL menu comes up and adding:

Code: [Select]

waitusb=10to the line that contains the word  quiet.

I did try that even though its not a USB CDROM drive (this machine is too old for USB) but it just delayed the inevitable.

It's also possible  Plop  is not set up correctly. I've never used it but
I know some other members have. Maybe one of them will chime in.

Plop is clearly enabling the cdrom drive to start with but its getting lost when trying to boot the kernel. I'll have a dig around and see if there is anything I can do to keep the cdrom driver loaded.

[Rich]

Hi rodders
The kernel and core.gz are 2 separate things.

The kernel runs the show and gets loaded first. That's the vmlinuz file.
core.gz contains the file system (/bin, /dev, /etc, /home, /lib, ... ) and
gets unpacked by the kernel.

I wonder if you are running out of RAM. Try adding these boot codes:

Code: [Select]

base text nozswapand see if you get to a command prompt.

[CNK]

I wonder if you are running out of RAM. Try adding these boot codes:

Code: [Select]

base text nozswapand see if you get to a command prompt.

If the kernel hasn't started init, then those boot codes won't have any effect yet. Using rootfs.gz without modules.gz instead of core.gz for the initramfs would reduce the required RAM, though I guess only core.gz is on the CD and you might need modules.gz to load extensions.

The cdrom driver shouldn't be needed to run init after the kernel is started, the rootfs containing init should have already been loaded in RAM along with the Linux kernel. Any errors or messages shown before "Kernel panic - not syncing: No working init found" after selecting from the CD boot menu might help narrow down the issue.

[Rich]

Hi CNK

... If the kernel hasn't started init, then those boot codes won't have any effect yet. ...

You're right. Guess I didn't think that one through.

... Using rootfs.gz without modules.gz instead of core.gz for the initramfs would reduce the required RAM, ...

That's true. In that case I would definitely use:

Code: [Select]

base textso extensions don't get loaded.

... Any errors or messages shown before "Kernel panic - not syncing: No working init found" after selecting from the CD boot menu might help narrow down the issue.

He could do that by deleting  quiet  when the TCL menu comes up.

[rodders]

I'll get a screen shot of the boot process. I don't think there is a quiet specified.

[Rich]

Hi rodders

... I don't think there is a quiet specified.

When you boot, you should be presented with a screen that looks
similar (but not identical) to this:


Using the up/down arrows, you can move the white bar to highlight
the version you want to boot.

Then, if you hit the  Tab  key, one of the editable lines displayed will
contain the word  quiet.

[rodders]

Sorry Rich but your image just come up as "Content not viewable in your region" but I know the screen you mean.
I selected the last item "Boot Core without embedded extensions with waitusb=5" and the results are in the attachment.

[Rich]

Hi rodders
The image should now be visible to you.

Did you try hitting  Tab  and deleting the word  quiet?
If you do that, some more error message may show up.

[rodders]

Ah, I was using Core Plus. Would that make a difference?
As you can see from my image, there is no quiet keyword.