2.13 boot up kernel freeze on my desktop? Help...

[garion]

I am new to puppy, but really likes its compactness and all the rest. I had some trouble with the livecd on my desktop though. The same CD worked on two different laptops I tried, but freezes everytime on my Dell Dimension 4600 desktop, it always gets stuck at "loading kernel now...". Same thing if I install to a usb key, which naturally boots fine on other computers as well.

I am using the official 2.13 iso. I have upgraded my desktop bios to the newest, and it boots no problem with Windows CD, Ubuntu LiveCD, and Slax CD, just won't take Puppy 2.13. It's an Intel P4 3.06G, 512M, NV GeForce FX 5200, loaded with two IDE HDD, one CD-RW and one DVD-ROM, SB Live. It being one of the standard config from Dell, I can't think of anything fancy that would possibly cause the crash.

Anyone has idea of what might be wrong here? Or anything I can do to get more information of the crash?

Thanks!

[WhoDo]

Anyone has idea of what might be wrong here? Or anything I can do to get more information of the crash?

Did you save any settings to the CD when you ran it?

Dell's are very picky about video. That might be the problem you are encountering. Either that or low RAM.

Try downloading GParted from Distrowatch.com and burn that to a CD. Boot your Dell from the Gparted CD and create a Linux swap partition on your hard drive. That would solve a low RAM issue.

Cheers

[garion]

No, I just burned the original ISO to a CD, finalized it. It freezes at the boot from the very first time.

If it's the video problem, is there any parameter I could try for booting? As I have mentioned, it doesn't have any problem when booting with the default on Ubuntu LiveCD and Slax LiveCD.

I am not sure what do you mean by low RAM. The CD and usb stick both boot fine on a very old laptop with only 256M ram and no linux partition existing on HDD, but my desktop has 512M. In fact, my desktop has Ubuntu installed, so it does have a 1G or so swap partition on it already, but I am not sure how this partition could be used by the Puppy CD boot process.

Further advice is appreciated, thanks.

Anyone has idea of what might be wrong here? Or anything I can do to get more information of the crash?

Did you save any settings to the CD when you ran it?

Dell's are very picky about video. That might be the problem you are encountering. Either that or low RAM.

Try downloading GParted from Distrowatch.com and burn that to a CD. Boot your Dell from the Gparted CD and create a Linux swap partition on your hard drive. That would solve a low RAM issue.

Cheers

[Dougal]

We've recently discovered (on the other forum) that elspci was responsible for freezing someone's computer. So if you get the "loading kernel modules" message and then it freezes, that's probably the reason.
Jesse has fixed that problem and in the next Beta it will hopefullt be ok...

[garion]

Sorry that I didn't make it clear, my desktop freezes at "Uncompress okay... booting the kernel" line, it doesn't even reach the "loading kernel module..." part. Any idea what that is? Thanks a lot.

We've recently discovered (on the other forum) that elspci was responsible for freezing someone's computer. So if you get the "loading kernel modules" message and then it freezes, that's probably the reason.
Jesse has fixed that problem and in the next Beta it will hopefullt be ok...

[daemon]

I had such problem when Linux kernel didn't like my hdd. Everything as you describe, bu with ANY linux kernel, not only puppy... Try "ide=nodma" option. Or try to disable Ide controller in bios and boot from usb (just to find out what is wrong).

[garion]

Thanks, just tried that... still no good. I booted with usb stick, disabled both IDE hard drives and both IDE optical drives and turned off IDE UDMA in bios, still the same symptom.

Haven't had chance to try CD boot with nodma option yet. By the way, is there a way to choose optional boot parameters when I am booting from usb stick?

I had such problem when Linux kernel didn't like my hdd. Everything as you describe, bu with ANY linux kernel, not only puppy... Try "ide=nodma" option. Or try to disable Ide controller in bios and boot from usb (just to find out what is wrong).

[Dougal]

[quote="garion"]Haven't had chance to try CD boot with nodma option yet. By the way, is there a way to choose optional boot parameters when I am booting from usb stick?

Does it use a boot loader (i.e. grub)? if so you just add them to the same line as PMEDIA.

There are many kernel boot parameters, you'll have to find out which is relevant... sometimes "irqpoll" helps with HW problems.
The best would be to google for the last line you get before freezing and see what other people used when they got it (doesn't matter which distro -- it's a kernel problem).

[garion]

There is no grub installed on the usb stick, I believe the universal installer just ran it through syslinux to make it bootable. Not sure how to add parameters in this case, since it jumps right to boot sequence on startup.

So I guess it's some config that Puppy has its kernel compiled with that's causing the problem huh...

Haven't had chance to try CD boot with nodma option yet. By the way, is there a way to choose optional boot parameters when I am booting from usb stick?

Does it use a boot loader (i.e. grub)? if so you just add them to the same line as PMEDIA.

There are many kernel boot parameters, you'll have to find out which is relevant... sometimes "irqpoll" helps with HW problems.
The best would be to google for the last line you get before freezing and see what other people used when they got it (doesn't matter which distro -- it's a kernel problem).

[WhoDo]

If it's the video problem, is there any parameter I could try for booting? As I have mentioned, it doesn't have any problem when booting with the default on Ubuntu LiveCD and Slax LiveCD.

Try ...

Code: Select all

puppy vga=normal

...which should give you a bog standard 640x480 resolution at 16-bit (I think?). Dell's handle that ok to start but will work with either Xvesa or Xorg later, don't know why. If it says "Passed undefined video mode" simply select Mode 0 and continue.

I am not sure what do you mean by low RAM.

Me either. I just didn't read your post properly. It was an pretty ordinary day, but no excuses. Sorry.

You asked about Puppy using the swap partition at boot. If you already have a swap partition for another distro, Puppy WILL attempt to use that swap partition, whether it needs it or not. I suggest you reformat the swap partition before attempting to boot Puppy from the LiveCD, or use the pfix=ram option to boot to RAM only. Just a thought.

Cheers

[garion]

I think I am about to give up... I tried pretty much all parameters and their combinations: ide=nodma, pfix=ram, acpi=off, vga=normal... just none of them worked...

If it's the video problem, is there any parameter I could try for booting? As I have mentioned, it doesn't have any problem when booting with the default on Ubuntu LiveCD and Slax LiveCD.

Try ...

Code: Select all

puppy vga=normal

...which should give you a bog standard 640x480 resolution at 16-bit (I think?). Dell's handle that ok to start but will work with either Xvesa or Xorg later, don't know why. If it says "Passed undefined video mode" simply select Mode 0 and continue.

I am not sure what do you mean by low RAM.

Me either. I just didn't read your post properly. It was an pretty ordinary day, but no excuses. Sorry.

You asked about Puppy using the swap partition at boot. If you already have a swap partition for another distro, Puppy WILL attempt to use that swap partition, whether it needs it or not. I suggest you reformat the swap partition before attempting to boot Puppy from the LiveCD, or use the pfix=ram option to boot to RAM only. Just a thought.

Cheers

[WhoDo]

I think I am about to give up... I tried pretty much all parameters and their combinations: ide=nodma, pfix=ram, acpi=off, vga=normal... just none of them worked...

Have you thought about downloading and booting Puppy 1.xx series with the Linux 2.4.x kernel just to see if that loads? Doing so means you would be using an earlier version of the kernel which is often more compatible.

I'm sorry you're having no success with this. I've worked with plenty of Dell's but nothing as recent as your Dimension 4600 so I'm afraid I'm not being too much help.

Maybe you could try posting your problem at the developer's forum, too? Not all of them are regular readers of the community forum.

http://www.puppyos.net/forum/

Start with a browse through the "Booting Issues" sub-group.

Hope that helps.