Slack 14.0 CD won't load!

[joop g]

Hello, *

I have a strange problem. I want to upgrade "my" Dell PowerEdge T605 server
from Slack 12.1 to the newest release, 14.0. I have the live CD, which has
already been used on several other machines. On this machine, however,
nothing happens. And by nothing I mean nothing. Nothing on the screen, not
even a load light flashing, nothing at all.

The disk has been tried several times. Moreover, I just got a fresh copy.
Same result.

The BIOS menu is not the problem either; Other CDs load without problems (I
tried Ubuntu server, since it was at hand, and Debian).

Moreover, if I load Debian, I can mount the failing CD and read its files.
It only won't boot. Why not?

Anyone a suggestion? Thanks in advance.

[notbob]

On 2013-07-19, joop g <jj...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

> It only won't boot. Why not?

I had this problem back around ver 11. Boxed set no 1 CD wouldn't
boot. I jes burned a new one from a slack repository. It worked, end
of problem. I've never heard of a slack liveCD.

nb

[Auric__]

notbob wrote:

> I've never heard of a slack liveCD.

Probably joop meant a slack-derived livecd. Slax or similar.

--
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- Yes, all neurologists must be, it's a requirement.

[Michael Black]

On Sat, 20 Jul 2013, Auric__ wrote:

> notbob wrote:
>
>> I've never heard of a slack liveCD.
>
> Probably joop meant a slack-derived livecd. Slax or similar.
>

I just saw a reference to something else that provided a Live Slackware, I
can't remember where or what.

But in the context of the original post, I think the "live CD" was a
misinterpreation. You boot the Slackware disk and you "go live", albeit
with a limited selection of utilities. But you need that limited
Slackware in order to run the installer.

Michael

[joop g]

Sorry, I should have said "DVD".

[Henrik Carlqvist]

On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 17:57:08 +0200, joop g wrote:
> I want to upgrade "my" Dell PowerEdge T605

I'm not familiar with that machine, but if it is very old it might help
to burn a new DVD using some other option to mkisofs. Some broken bioses
might need "-boot-load-size 32" instead of "-boot-load-size 4" as
described in isolinux/README.TXT.

regards Henrik
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[notbob]

On 2013-07-20, joop g <jj...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

>> Other CDs load without problems

> Sorry, I should have said "DVD".

Does that apply to "other CDs" also?

May jes be faulty hardware. I know my ancient Vaio P4 box will not boot
from its DVD, despite it having a DVD player and a bios that indicates
the DVD drive is bootable. I hadda burn a full set of CDs to install
13.37. Try some other bootable DVD.

nb

[Bit Twister]

On 20 Jul 2013 09:17:22 GMT, Henrik Carlqvist wrote:
>
> I'm not familiar with that machine, but if it is very old it might help
> to burn a new DVD using some other option

Experience has shown me that iso created on new burner may not be
readable on old iso drives. :(
I had to burn iso on old drive for it to be readable.
I also have seen bad burns forcing me to run a sum check on burnt iso
before trying install.

[joop g]

Well, an update: today I tried the old 12.1 DVD, from which I installed the
system a few years ago. Didn't load. I am pretty sure that it loaded years
ago...

Well, the system has to be up and running before Monday, so I tried a Debian
CD (yes, it was a CD, using Netinstall). No problems (well, actually, there
was some fuss about missing firmware, but I could find that via google). So
I think I will have to go for Debian, at least for this system.

Well, this happened to be a real CD, but I don't think that is the issue.I
also tried an Ubuntu server DVD, but I decided not to go ahead when it
threatened to format my whole disk (including about 1 TByte of data which I
want to keep). But it definitely loaded and ran. Everything does, except
Slackware :-(

[Michael Black]

Henrik mentions the "-boot-load-size 32".

I think even on my 2003 1GHz computer, I had to use the smartbootmanager
program (I forget the exact name but it used to be on the SLackware
release, somewhere) to boot from the CD or DVD. Put the bootmanager on
a floppy disk, and then boot from the floppy disk, which in turn allowed
one to boot from the DVD.

This was an issue, and for a long time Slackware used some old standard so
old hardware could boot the disk. Then eventually that was changed (I
forget at which release) so we had to boot other ways with old hardware,
or get new hardware.

This is hazy because I can't fully remember, but I'm pretty sure I had to
use the smart boot manager until I moved to this 3GHz computer last
OCtober.

It has something to do with the BIOS not being able to read larger boot
images or something, it was discussed on the changelog at one point, was
discussed here, but years back so I can't remember details.

You could move the needed things to a USB flash drive, boot from that
(assuming your computer can boot from USB) then once the installer gets
going, point it to the pacakges on the DVD, and that should work.

Michael

[joop g]

Fair enough, yes, but:

1. At least the Slack 12.1 _did_ boot on the same machine (I ran this
version for several years). And now it won't boot anymore. Same DVD, even
physically, I just dug it up.

2. Well, I simply don't have the time.Debian is not as familiar to me as
Slackware, but I have already a basic config running. Adding back the users
is a matter of copying directories (which I saved, of course) and
/etc/passwd group and a few more (and the samba subdir, and a few ones which
I will discover when they are missing ;-) ). And I think Debian is at least
as respectable as Slackware. Only, I had planned to do this in a few hours,
as usual, and now it takes days :-(

The only thing I really don't like: it seems that Debian has patched
kernels, and AFAIK Slackware is still pure :-) I will have to live with
that, then.

[Dan C]

On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 13:00:42 +0000, Bit Twister wrote:

> On 20 Jul 2013 09:17:22 GMT, Henrik Carlqvist wrote:
>>
>> I'm not familiar with that machine, but if it is very old it might help
>> to burn a new DVD using some other option
>
> Experience has shown me that iso created on new burner

You create an ISO on a "burner"? What?

> may not be readable on old iso drives.

What exactly is an "iso drive"?

> I had to burn iso on old drive for it to be readable.

Finally, a sentence that makes (a little) sense.

> I also have seen bad burns forcing me to run a sum check on burnt iso
> before trying install.

A "sum check"? A "burnt iso"? WTF are those?

Jesus, get a clue, Mandriva-boi.


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[Kirk_Von_Rockstein]

On 2013-07-20, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

> Henrik mentions the "-boot-load-size 32".
>
> I think even on my 2003 1GHz computer, I had to use the smartbootmanager
> program (I forget the exact name but it used to be on the SLackware
> release, somewhere) to boot from the CD or DVD. Put the bootmanager on
> a floppy disk, and then boot from the floppy disk, which in turn allowed
> one to boot from the DVD.

yeah...sbootmgr.dsk was the file name.
cd into directory where sbootmgr.dsk resides.
dd if=sbootmgr.dsk of=/dev/fd0
to put image file on floppy.

Plop Boot Manager would work also.
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagers.html

If OP does not have a FD on system,
he could boot image either via Grub,
Lilo etc on his existing system
by copying the sbootmgr.dsk or plpbt.bin
to /boot directory for example and edit
Lilo or Grub conf files accordingly.
Can not remember the stanzas for Lilo.

Grub Legacy Example:

title PLoP Boot Manager
root (hd0,1)
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/plpbt.bin

title Smart Boot Manager
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/memdisk.bin
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/sbootmgr.dsk