Bug 7987

Summary:	"Successful" install = unusable system
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	schwim
Component:	installer	Assignee:	Jay Turner <jturner>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:
Severity:	high	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	6.1	CC:	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:

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.