OK, I've recovered my 600E "known good system". It boots XP. lubuntu 10.04 CD booted to a menu. There was no grub option, and no mention of grub in the help files. Under pre-requisites there was a note that this ubuntu requires 384 megs of RAM. But the system had only 32 + 128 + 128 = 288 MB of RAM. That would explain the kernel panics. I guess there never was a myth about linux requiring light resources. After all, we remember that Win95 would run sluggishly in 14 Meg, but just fine in 16 Meg. And in this very machine bloaty old XP (a fairly lite version though) runs OK with only 288 MB RAM.
I was able to find the "boot options" which went together with the menu option to boot lubuntu live. I've transcribed this below. My apologies if there are any transcription errors. file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash -- Just for fun I chose "Free software only" from the F6 option bar, to minimize the load ... but Kernel Panic again. I regret that this 600E system is no longer available for testing. Have a good day. >Sorry, Alex, I'm from the CP/M - DR-DOS - OS/2 - Windows train >of thought. I just tried to install lubuntu because it was >recommended here. I had previously installed pclinuxos on a >hard drive and found it rather ponderous: slow. On a 600E. >I was hoping lubuntu might be a Windows alternative to the young >person who was going to use the 600E. The disk was direct from >the lubuntu org. I gave up and put something else on the hard >drive. > >I don't remember a grub menu option. Every menu >option that I tried, ended in "Kernel panic", which I guess is >one form of "hanging" as we used to call it. > >In the example I gave, it was trying to load itself into RAM. >So it couldn't find the disk it had just booted from? Or it >was unable to find the RAM? > >At the risk of being pedantic, I couldn't "paste" anything >from a system that doesn't work. At best, I'd have to retype >it. > >>Can't find the root device for some reason. Get into the grub menu, edit the >>command line, and paste it here. >> >>On Aug 5, 2010 12:34 PM, "Jonathan Berry" <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>>I tried installing lubuntu 10.04 from CD on a (known good!) >>>600E, and after the initial menu, all I got was "kernel panic", >>>whatever that is. >>> >>>For example, this message: >>> >>>[ 4.534868] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount >>>root-fs on unknown block (8,1) >>> >>>and then the computer runs hot, but actually isn't doing >>>anything. Might as well turn it off. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>I tried Xubuntu with LXDE installed and it gave no where near the >>performance that Lubuntu does... >> >>> --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal >> >>> --- IBM ThinkPad 600 running Lubuntu 10.04 >> -- happy Jonathan Berry and Erika http://members.shaw.ca/berry5868/fun.htm _______________________________________________ Thinkpad mailing list [email protected] http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
