Reboot and reboot and reboot

Booting, installing, newbie
Post Reply
Message
Author
langstracht
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed 15 Aug 2012, 11:08

Reboot and reboot and reboot

#1 Post by langstracht »

I've installed Puppeee on a rather old Eee 701. The installation was reported as fine.

I now have a dev/sd11 ext3 partition of 3.23 Gig, 248Meg used and a boot flag.

When powering up the Eee it goes through the two "usual" initiation screens, does NOT boot up ... and repeats the process.

Does anyone know what I guess I did wrong ... and how to fix it.

TIA for any and all help.

Bruce B

#2 Post by Bruce B »

Welcome to the forum, and please don't take some of my words as an offense. I hope you take it as good advice.

There is no dev/sd11
There might be a /dev/sda11

We all make mistakes and typos on our posts. But considering I don't know you, the mistake causes me to wonder how careful of a worker you are. (sorry)

And when setting up an operating system it pays to be a careful worker.

Also, there are many versions of Puppy and I've not used the eee versions. This limits my abiltity to help with some particulars unique to eee.
When powering up the Eee it goes through the two "usual" initiation screens, does NOT boot up ... and repeats the process.
This is tough for me because I can't conceptualize the two "usual" screens. I could guess it means the GRUB menu and a boot screen to hide the text which would otherwise be displayed.

Also, do you mean to say it keeps rebooting on its own?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Puppy boots in a few seconds and I cripple the graphic image which hides the text output. I want to read the output and in my case I could possibly say exactly where the problem happens.

My question is: does it boot with a CD disc?

If it does, I want you to see if there is an /dev/sd?11 device. Can you mount it and check? Older puppies only went up to 9. If you had an /dev/sd?11 but not the driver puppy would go insane and as I recall, reboot.

But you would see the insanity by reading the text output, which I don't think you can do.

I suggest persistence on your part, I feel confident you will nail the problem with someone's help.

Please to not consider me THE helper. Although I'll try and watch this topic.

~

cthisbear
Posts: 4422
Joined: Sun 29 Jan 2006, 22:07
Location: Sydney Australia

#3 Post by cthisbear »

" My question is: does it boot with a CD disc? "

No cd drives Bruce.

http://www.ehow.com/list_7432743_eee-pc ... tions.html

I would try again with Fluppy or Dpup Exprimo

version >>> Dpup Exprimo 5.X.3.4.2.9 with 3.4.2 kernel.

Did you setup via usb or sd card???

::::::

A Beginner's Guide to Installing Puppy


http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29356

Chris.

User avatar
Karl Godt
Posts: 4199
Joined: Sun 20 Jun 2010, 13:52
Location: Kiel,Germany

#4 Post by Karl Godt »

I thingkgkgkgk grrr /dev/sda1 should be mean mean me meant.

I don't know Pupeee derivate, but from my experience 248 MB used of 3,x GB SSD/HDD is not much. Usually a 100 MB .sfs expands 3x and more in a full installation . Somehow i feel that there might be files missing .

But i might be wrong if you have a frugal installation with 2x125MB .sfs and .iso .

Also could you post the bootloader configuration file (ie /boot/grub/menu.lst Or syslinux.cfg) .

I think the Eee ones are so small that they have no CD-Drive. So it seems to have booted via USB Pen-Drive ?

langstracht
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed 15 Aug 2012, 11:08

#5 Post by langstracht »

First thanks to all of you for responding.

I guess I am not as careful as I like to think - I meant to type sda1.

The Eee does not have a disc drive - the install was done from a USB DVD drive.

The two screens are a memory check and a hardware listing ... and then on to the boot up. This is the third OS I've had on the Eee and those screens have not changed.

I can boot up from the USB DVD drive.

sda1 is visible on the Desktop. And it has a white X in a red circle at the left hand bottom corner which I think means that it is mounted.

By re-booting on its own I mean just that. It tries to boot Puppee, fails and goes back through the above two screens again ... and tries to boot ... and fails ... and ...

I'm afraid I haven't been able to find either /boot/grub/menu.lst or syslinux.cfg.

So hopefully this addresses everything outstanding.

Look forward to your help. And thanks again

User avatar
Karl Godt
Posts: 4199
Joined: Sun 20 Jun 2010, 13:52
Location: Kiel,Germany

#6 Post by Karl Godt »

First i can only second this :
A Beginner's Guide to Installing Puppy

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29356

Chris.
Second : We still don't know if you installed full or frugal.

Third :
Without a bootloader in the MasterBootRecord of the internal HDD of the Eee
you can only boot with something else like your external DVD-Drive .
I suspect a DVD/HDD mismatch somewhere .

Pupeee uses a non-standard-puppy kernel
and what you describe can i imagine with something like

"/sbin/init not found" and that the kernel is configured with "panic=1"

that means if the kernel gets a severe problem below LOGLEVEL=3(warn)
it would reboot.
Most Linux Distros don't configure their's kernels with the panic=SECONDS parameter .

The kernel parameters can still be appended to sys/extlinux.cfg like
default puppy
display boot.msg
prompt 1
timeout 50

F1 boot.msg
F2 help.msg

label puppy
kernel vmlinuz panic=40
append initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=cd
the isolinux.cfg of the pup.iso should have .

sfeeley
Posts: 812
Joined: Sun 14 Feb 2010, 16:34

#7 Post by sfeeley »

A few more questions (the answers will let smarter people than me help):

How did you install puppeee? By this I mean:

1) I see that you are able to boot using a usb-DVD, and presumably were able to run live from that. While running live did you use the universal installer icon? Something else? (and be a bit specific, since many of us don't use puppeee, and there might be options some are less familiar with)

2) While installing, did you do a "full-install" or a "frugal install" (don't be mislead by the terms, both are equally valid, and most people use frugal installs because of their ease of maintenance)

3) While installing, did you have to choose and configure a bootloader of some sort? Typically this would be something like grub or grub4dos (although there might be other options on fluppy). Often this is the hardest step, since sometimes you have to manually tweak a file.
This is the third OS I've had on the Eee
what were the others? are they still on there? do you intend to have a mutliboot?

langstracht
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed 15 Aug 2012, 11:08

#8 Post by langstracht »

Given the specificity that you are all looking for I think the best thing for me to do is to re-install. After, this time, having read the Beginner's Guide.

And either do EXACTLY as it tells me or, if indeed there are any, note the options taken.

I'll be back at you in a while ...

langstracht
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed 15 Aug 2012, 11:08

#9 Post by langstracht »

O.k. so the re-install is underway. And I'm stuck. And if the Beginners Guide says anything about this - sorry but I didn't see it.

I'm not sure why the dialogue about MBR talks about the USB drive

First time around I "chose" default (i.e. DO NOTHING) with the MBR.

I have the distinction impression that was NOT the right thing to do.

So there are 4 other choices - sys-nopart.mbr, mbr.bin, mbrfat.bin and spb2_mbr.bin.

Can someone tell me which one to use?

Oh, in case it matters, the last OS on the Eee was Mint. And it booted up fine.

User avatar
Karl Godt
Posts: 4199
Joined: Sun 20 Jun 2010, 13:52
Location: Kiel,Germany

#10 Post by Karl Godt »

I'm not sure why the dialogue about MBR talks about the USB drive
/dev/sr0 ?
First time around I "chose" default (i.e. DO NOTHING) with the MBR.
That would install into the superblock of the partition.
MBR is the usual way . Don't know why this over-precaution notice about the MBR is issued. No-one seems to obey it in Puppy-Land .
So there are 4 other choices - sys-nopart.mbr, mbr.bin, mbrfat.bin and spb2_mbr.bin.
perhaps rsrsn51 would be the right one to explain these. I don't know any of these .
Oh, in case it matters, the last OS on the Eee was Mint. And it booted up fine.
I don't know anything about MINT but Mint has a good reputation at the forum .

I suspect the mint Grub2 still in the MBR.

User avatar
Ray MK
Posts: 774
Joined: Tue 05 Feb 2008, 09:10
Location: UK

#11 Post by Ray MK »

Hi langstracht

Jemimah purpose built several Puppee’s for the Asus 701 / 900 series and more.
They were all outstanding and are still the best puppy’s for those Asus netbooks.

Fluppy is also a good choice.

1st. Puppee choice will be determined which CPU your machine has, the ram and the SSD size.

Normally I would suggest the last-made Puppee which is available with either Celeron or Atom kernel optimisation. (Do a frugal install as recommended)

Another excellent choice would be Saluki - (luki23). More of Jemimah’s outstanding work. Saluki is very custumisable.

Many other puppy’s are also good for the Asus 701‘s but the above are the best.

HTH - very best regards - Ray
[b]Asus[/b] 701SD. 2gig ram. 8gb SSD. [b]IBM A21m[/b] laptop. 192mb ram. PIII Coppermine proc. [b]X60[/b] T2400 1.8Ghz proc. 2gig ram. 80gb hdd. [b]T41[/b] Pentium M 1400Mhz. 512mb ram.

langstracht
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed 15 Aug 2012, 11:08

#12 Post by langstracht »

O.k. So lacking any actionable advice I went ahead (anyway) and used mbr.bin.

And I seem to have a working installation.

cthisbear
Posts: 4422
Joined: Sun 29 Jan 2006, 22:07
Location: Sydney Australia

#13 Post by cthisbear »

Good answers here as well for the next newby....

from Sylvander.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=80376

With GParted....always take care.

Chris.

Post Reply