Thanks to all in this group. I was able to get my ASUS P2B-D
system to run with both NT and Linux. The FAQ was very helpful
in identifying what hardware to shy away from and what hard-
ware has a pretty good record.
Thanks to all those who submitted *exact* instructions on how
to recompile the kernel AND modules. the FAQ does NOT provide
detailed enough steps to this very critical SMP question.
(the sequence should be: make config; make dep; make clean;
make install; make modules; make modules_install).
I made two stupid errors which added a lot of fustration. one
was a LILO misunderstanding which might be added to the FAQ:
(a) I have two IDE drives in this system. one 5.1GB and one 9.1GB.
I put NT on the smaller drive with - and this is the
important part - a 1GB MSDOS partition (that is 4.1GB NT and
1.0GB of MSDOS). I did not format with system the MSDOS
partition. i put LINUX on the 9.1GB drive. it found all the
partitions correctly. BUT, it made a LILO entry for the MSDOS
partition. when it came to the part in the installation where
it asks if you want to install the boot loader it failed with
*NO* hint on why LILO didn't work. I spent two weeks reading
zillions of LILO writeups which resulted in nothing. then, I
took the advice of the mini LILO-HOWTO. i booted from floppy and
ran LILO by hand with two (2) "-v" switches. Lo and behold
i saw an error message when it attempted to write something
for the MSDOS partition. it then occured to me i had never for-
matted that partition with system e.g. non-bootable. therefore
i manually removed that part from lilo.conf and re-ran LILO.
:) :) :) :) :) moral: don't create non-bootable partitions or
manually remove the parition from LILO.conf. RH: why not run
LILO with the two "-v" switches so that the output is accessible
from ALT-F4/F5 during install? finally, remember that LILO works
best and easist if the target drive containing the boot-loader is
on IDE controller 1. don't get a Phd. by trying to put it on IDE
controller 2; it will not work.
(b) here is a *possible* short-cut for those, who like me, love pro-
gramming but do not wish to a get a PHd. in linux system admin.
when installing LINUX along side NT. here's what to do.
(1) install NT on a single HDD. at this point forget about linux
(2) take out the NT drive; put it aside
(3) put in your linux HDD (as with step 1, on IDE controller #1
as master).
(4) install linux. the install programs for RH and mandrake RH
are remarkably simple to follow.
(5) put your NT disk in the system either as a slave HDD on IDE
controller #1 or as master on IDE controller #2. if you have
a CDROM it will probably already be the slave unit on IDE #1.
(6) use vi, to manually add an entry for NT in lilo.conf. (use
fdisk to on /dev/hda for IDE1 or /dev/hdc on IDE #2 followed
by 'p' at the fdisk prompt to get partition info).
(7) re-run lilo as root like this "lilo -v -v"
the only downside to this approach, is that when you choose NT
from the LILO prompt, it runs the OS-LOADER for NT. this prompts
you which OS to run (usually NT or NT-VGA). this solution is not
as nice as others i admit. but it is easier; there is less to
go wrong.
and the end of all this, i have two questions:
(a) after i recompiled the kernel and modules (using Mandrake 6.0)
everything almost works fine ... when the system boots it works
OK till it says "finding module dependencies". the HDD access
light stays lit for a sec or two then goes off. the system stops
apparently hung. I press CTRL-C and presto: the system continues
to boot OK (in init level 5 [or 5s; the CTRL-C obscures some
text]). everything else works 100% per the book. ideas?
(b) i need to get a good shareware version of motif? any recommend-
ations?
thanks, again, to all who have helped! it is appreciated!
very best regards,
shane
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