I give up on x86-64, its too busted.

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 16 April 2006 16:44, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
>On Sun, 16 Apr 2006, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Sunday 16 April 2006 14:52, Gene Heskett wrote:
>>> On Sunday 16 April 2006 13:47, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 16 Apr 2006, Gene Heskett wrote:
>>>>> Humm, I now have installed the 386 version of FC5, but I told it
>>>>> to put grub in the 1st sector of /dev/hda2, the partition named
>>>>> /boot.
>>>>>
>>>>> But there's no choice of booting anything but XP.  I guess this
>>>>> means I have to install it in the mbr of /dev/hda?
>>>>>
>>>>> In which case how do I install it, and whats the magic spell to
>>>>> put into grub.conf so I have a choice of what to boot?
>>>>>
>>>>> Running the rescue cd, and cd'd to /mnt/sysimage, with a shell, a
>>>>> "usr/local/sbin/grub-install /dev/hda"  gets me a message that it
>>>>> can't find grub in sbin.  Of course its not there, if booted
>>>>> normally it would be in /usr/sbin.
>
>Actually, it would be in /sbin/.  So it would be in
> /mnt/sysimage/sbin/ if it's not part of the rescue image.  Or instead
> of cd, use "chroot /mnt/sysimage".  That will make your environment
> look just like your normal system.

Thats what I found in that thread, and it seems to have worked.  Yum 
updated, x restarted with kde & a real screenmode, looking better all 
the time.  But I just sent me a message from evolution, ahh, it finally 
echoed from vz.  So thats working.  I ran firefox against this machine 
and all the printers showed up, now to do that to localhost:631.  And 
that looks good.  The printers are all there.  I love it when things 
Just Work(TM) for a change.

But I'm very surprised that kmail is not in the kde menu's.  Has it been 
dropped in favor of evolution?

By golly, I might be able to pack this puppy up & haul it 1k miles & 
still be in touch for email and such.

I see that in the xorg.conf, there are two mouse entries, so presumably 
I can plug in that bluetooth M$ minimouse and it will work too.

I just noticed that the blue led in the screen hinge, which lights up 
when winderz is running & the broadcom 802-11 is enabled, is not lit 
here.  Am I going to have to go buy an 802-11 standalone gismo, 
plugging it into my switch, in order to test that?

Its a concern because thats what the motel I'll be staying in has for 
broadband access.  Can someone familiar with that throw me a clueby4?

>>>>> Obviously there's something I'm doing wrong in trying to protect
>>>>> the XP install, but how can I fix it and boot the just installed
>>>>> i386 version of FC5?  I'd druther not have to go all the way thru
>>>>> another install just to move the grub stuff into the MBR.
>>>>
>>>> You are fine with GRUB in /dev/hda2.  Now boot with a rescue disk
>>>> and run 'fdisk /dev/hda'  Then enter 'a' to toggle the boot flag
>>>> and then '2' to make /dev/hda2 bootable, then 'w' to write the
>>>> partition table, then reboot.
>>>>
>>>> Do *NOT* use the Windows disk manager to toggle the bootable flag!
>>>> Every time I tried that with Win2K, it would blow away my entire
>>>> partition table.
>>>>
>>>> I always thought it would be nice if when you selected /boot's
>>>> partition for GRUB, the installer would make it bootable, but when
>>>> I bugzilla'd the request it was shot down.
>>>
>>> I just did that, checked it with a p, then w rote it.  Got this
>>> message: Warning: re-reading the partition table failed with error
>>> 16: Device or resource busy.  Then I ctl-d'd the shell and let it
>>> reboot.  It booted to windows, I rebooted, hit esc, that screen
>>> looked like the normal bios screen for selection, with neither hda1
>>> nor hda2, just hda being the choices.  I rebooted to the rescue cd,
>>> and re-ran fdisk & found that flag was off again.  I've set it
>>> again, but when I w the changes, the above error is output.
>
>I don't think the fdisk error is a problem, as it occurs on reading.
>The BIOS selection screen won't show partitions, just devices.  The
> boot process should find the active partition on the disk or boot the
> MBR if there is none.
>
>>> Do I need to skip the search?  Ahh, that time no error when I wrote
>>> it, but the * survived adjacent to /dev/hda2.  But no boot choice
>>> either on the reboot.
>>>
>>> So I power cycled it, and booted back to the rescue cd.  And no
>>> boot flag for /dev/hda2 when I rerun fdisk /dev/hda after the power
>>> cycle.
>>>
>>> Next suggestion reinstall/what?  If I reinstall, and let it put
>>> grub in the mbr this time, whats the magic spell for grub.conf to
>>> make XP Home edition usable again?
>>>
>>> Thats based on if I'm to hate winderz as bad as I have over the
>>> years, never having owned a winderz machine before, I'd at least
>>> like to get to know my enemy.
>>
>> And I just found GAG on the gparted disk, maybe this will work, or
>> should I figure on reinstalling and letting it put grub in the mbr
>> this time?
>
>I don't know GAG, but gparted should be another way to handle toggling
>boot flags.
>
>I always configure my dual-boot machines with GRUB in the /boot
> partition (which has to be a primary partition).  Then I make that
> partition active, as I described.  It's always worked just as I
> described.  When you boot, you should see the GRUB spash screen.
>
>Wait...  In the BIOS, do you have a boot virus checker?  If so, try
>turning it off before you run fdisk.
>
>--
>   Matthew Saltzman
>
>Clemson University Math Sciences
>mjs AT clemson DOT edu
>http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs

-- 
Cheers, Gene
People having trouble with vz bouncing email to me should add the word
'online' between the 'verizon', and the dot which bypasses vz's
stupid bounce rules.  I do use spamassassin too. :-)
Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above
message by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.