Bug 7987

Summary: "Successful" install = unusable system
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: schwim
Component: installerAssignee: Jay Turner <jturner>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact:
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6.1CC: schwim, srevivo
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2000-02-22 20:11:18 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description schwim 1999-12-24 20:06:22 UTC
I finally got several "successful" installs of 6.1 on my system after many
retries.  By successful I mean that installation actually completed to the
end.  However, of the 3 completed installs, all were basically pretty
messed up.

In the first case, at boot no modules were loaded, and errors were thrown
stating an incorrect kernel verions in /boot/System.map.  A "uname -r"
reported kernel 2.2.5-15 was running.  Looking in the /lib/modules
directory revealed that all modules were installed under the 2.2.12-20
directory.  Modprobe was using the "uname -r" method to determine the
module directory and thus was trying to load modules that did not exist.
I experimented and copied the /lib/modules/2.2.12-20 directory
to /lib/modules/2.2.5-15 and rebooted.  MANY errors were the result at
boot time, all specifying incorrect versions.  Rather than screw around
any more, I decided to rebuild.

After two more "successful" completions of the install, I came across the
errors "VFS error: could not mount root fs" and "could not find
initrc.img" resulting in a kernel panic.

System info: previously running version 6.0 flawlessly
Model: IBM 466DX2/Dp
i486 DX2 - 66MHz
32MB Ram
4GB HDD
Adaptec AHA-1542
3com 3c509
NE2000 compat.

Comment 1 Jay Turner 2000-02-22 20:11:59 UTC
If this was an upgrade, then lilo is installed in a different place than it was
previously and therefore the system is booting an old lilo installation, which
is loading an old kernel.  I would suggest making sure that lilo is installed to
the same location as before the upgrade and then your problems should be
resolved.