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A Second Computer—Day 31© Copyright Darrell Anderson. If people are wondering whether I use my own advice, the answer is sometimes! However, with respect to this journal, yes, I finally assembled my second box. My second box is a real screamer:
As of yet, no network or sound card. I installed Slackware-current from December 23, 2004. I continued my elaborate partitioning scheme, only this time, because I do not need to support Windows, I was liberal in my partition sizes:
I decided on the large swap partition because some day I might want to try remastering CDs and I once had read that I’d need more memory than the size of the CD. Unlike my past, this was the first time that I tried using GNU/Linux partitioning software. I used cfdisk. Previously I always had used a proprietary product that never failed me or Mandrake’s DiskDrake. I did not find cfdisk intuitive, but through past partitioning experience I figured out what to do. One thing that threw me, however, was I kept trying to create the extended partition but failed. Apparently cfdisk more or less does that underneath when creating logical partitions without the need to individually create the extended partition. I also did not like the way I was presented with a list of partition types and had to continually type “83” to replace the apparent default of “82.” No way to use the arrow keys to select the file system. Cumbersome. All in all, hardly a stressful process. However, I was not trying to resize partitions or work around existing Windows partitions, so I can’t vouch for how challenging that process might be with cfdisk. I also was not trying to copy or move partitions. After formatting and assigning my partitions, I decided for this first pass to perform a full Slackware installation. No sooner had I done that than I regretted my decision. I really did not want all of that extra software installed that I knew I did not want and won’t use. I ran into an immediate problem I had not experienced previously when installing Slackware on my multi-boot system. While installing the packages from the “ap” collection, I suddenly developed read problems with the CD. In the end I just saluted with three fingers and began again. Because of my rebooting, this time I decided against the full install and performed a “menu” installation. I don’t need to install GNOME or the other window managers. No, I don’t anticipate someday experimenting. I’ve experimented enough with them over the past two years and I will stick with the KDE. I also don’t do instant messaging and IRC so I toggled those programs too. Then there were a handful of server related programs like Apache that I do not anticipate looking at for a long time, if ever. This second attempt got as far as the “n” packages and again experienced the same problem. Apparently I have a hosed CD or drive. The disk is a CD-RW, so the burn speed is 4x. Hardly any stress on the drive. The disk worked fine in my other system. I noted the failed program and pressed Enter to continue. I got to the end of the first disk and inserted the second to install the KDE. I held my breath but everything installed okay. Later I manually installed the missing program with installpkg. I have used GRUB almost from the beginning days I started tinkering with GNU/Linux two years ago. Thus, I know nothing about LILO and have no desire to learn. I skipped the bootloader section and decided to use the CD to boot until I hand-configured GRUB. Upon rebooting from the CD the first thing I missed dramatically was my colored init scripts that I created on my primary box. I might send my scripts to the Slackware developer in the hopes he adopts my idea. Some people might roll their eyes at having colored messages during the boot process, but I find the colored messages helpful. Dare I say friendly? Shrug. After logging in I loaded the second CD and performed an installpkg to install GRUB. The installation was quick and I was unsure where the package was installed. GRUB has worked on my first box without problems and I never have investigated further. Thus, I decided this was a good excuse to run updatedb. I did so and received an error message that /var/lib/slocate/slocate.db did not exist. So I typed touch /var/lib/slocate/slocate.db and ran updatedb. Odd. One would think that updatedb would automatically create the database. Another example of user-hostileness instead of user-friendliness. I then discovered that the GRUB executables were installed to /usr/sbin. No surprises. I ran grubconfig to configure and install GRUB. Everything went well. I installed GRUB to the MBR. I successfully rebooted to a GRUB menu screen. I selected Slackware and received the following error message: Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS.Hmm. I never had any such problem on my multi-boot system. The two hard drives are identical Seagate 40 GB drives. I had no problems creating my partitions when I installed Slackware or used cfdisk. The test box uses a newer motherboard than my primary box. I wonder if I have to move my root partition? However, all of my partitions exist well below the 32 GB point. Besides, I don’t think drive size is the problem because the test box came with a different 40 GB drive. Granted, there was only one Windows partition on that drive. I exited the GRUB boot screen and typed root (hd0,) and then pressed Tab. Apparently GRUB could see only 6 partitions. Then I rebooted and made a pit stop into the BIOS. I changed the hard drive settings from AUTO/NORMAL to AUTO/LBA. I rebooted and then received the following error message: Error 15: File not foundOkay, should I laugh or cry? Then I noticed the text of the menu entry and everything was doubled: Kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda12 ro root=/dev/hda12 ro Okay, some quick editing and— Nothing. Same Error 15. Then I tried a BIOS setting of AUTO/LARGE. After rebooting I received a different message. GRUB tried to enter Stage 1.5 and then stopped with an Error 17. According to the GRUB documentation, that error means GRUB cannot mount the selected partition and the error “is returned if the partition requested exists, but the file system type cannot be recognized by GRUB.” Back to AUTO/LBA. I rebooted and stared at the menu option. Then I realized that I had configured GRUB to boot from /boot/vmlinuz and not (hd0,2)/vmlinuz. I made the necessary corrections and booted into Slackware. The next thing I did was rearrange my /boot partition because GRUB installed all of its files to /boot/boot/grub instead of /boot/grub. I don’t know if this is a GRUB thing or I caused that installation error but I vaguely recall the same thing happening two years ago when I installed GRUB on my first box. I edited the GRUB device map to include the floppy and a second hard drive. Then I performed another grub-install /dev/hda. I rebooted into Slackware flawlessly. My next step is to configure the video and monitor and copy pertinent configuration files from my first system. I don’t have the patience to recreate all of that. I want to get this box up to snuff as quickly as possible. The hard drive bays will come in handy while I play sneaker net. Finis. |
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