How to boot the second distro?

[praka123]

can u show us the output of

~#ls -l /boot

atleast,yeah i hope it wont let ur secret OS be out.

 

[phreak0ut]

the ouput is:

splash.bmp splash.initrd

 

[praka123]

so no kernel(vmlinuz) there? what about other files.

 

[phreak0ut]

No other files, only these. So, lilo.conf taking us for a ride?

 

[eddie]

You secret distro forgot to install kernel in your file system. I don't think how well can people help you if you keep all this process so hush hush. Probably you should try distro's own forum / irc channel. There you'll get much better and to-the-point help.

@mehul: What you think is correct. Linspire as well as Freespire are Debian based.

 

[praka123]

its weird!it seems if u reveal atleast the package management used(.deb,.rpm,.tgz,source) then only we can say how to reinstall Linux-kernel.u can do it via chroot from Ubuntu as u say u got ubuntu installed and bootable.or leave this secret game?what's with us?we dont care what ever the distro u use? so open it

 

[mehulved]

Since it's based on slackware, package format has to be tgz. But, it's difficult to find a binary optimised for that distro unless the distro name is mentioned.

 

[praka123]

@phreak:Its OK u can post the name of distro here.
ur /boot missing kernel.that means u shud get the kernel .tgz for the version to be installed somehow.I dont know much about slackware package manager.but the basic thing is u shud chroot to ur slax based distro from ur stock Ubuntu,install slax kernel etc.but since ur distro is live cd?u may need to copy the kernel and other parts(/lib/modules/uname -r) from live-cd session uff!.this is bcoz ur distro's kernel is custom compiled rather than slax kernel or slackware one afaik.so boot it as live-cd copy the kernel related stuffs to ur hdd /boot of ur slax based distro and try booting.
else u may need to compile a kernel from scratch and install it to ur slax based distro as chroot from Ubuntu.choice is upon u.

 

[phreak0ut]

WOW!!!!!!!!! Way too much work to do. Exams also closing in and no time for so many things. You are bang-on target Praka, about the details of the distro Its a live-cd which can be instaled. Also, I'm on dial-up Oh yeah, the distro's name is Back|Track. I think everyone is relieved now and my thread will be closed

Well, I reinstalled and to my surprise, I found that /boot has got the following files now. Its got both the vmlinuz and initrd files. Need to do some modifications to menu.lst and I think I'll be able to boot Will post once(again) its done.

 

[praka123]

I think u deleted linux kernel in ur earlier setup

 

[phreak0ut]

Noooooo!!!!!! I'm again wrong. I was typing /boot once I was in /slack directory. It used to take me to the /boot of Ubuntu. I was so happy, I missed it out all. On closer inspection of the kernel version, I found out that it was all wrong. Ubuntu's is 2.6.15 on my system and B|T is 2.6.20. Damn!! I'll find a solution on the official forum. Thanks a ton for being patient with me guys

 

[eddie]

I think everyone is relieved now and my thread will be closed

Why would it get closed? I don't think it is against the forum rules to talk about how to add a distro to GRUB. No matter what the distro is. We are not talking about how to use the security testing/cracking programs...we are talking about GRUB. This is not against forum rules and no one should close your thread.

Anyways, coming back to the issue. Slackware has a great package categorization on its CD. If this derived distro uses the same format then you should find all the required kernel packages in 'slackware/a' directory on your CD. There you will find kernel-generic and kernel-modules packages. Copy these files in your root directory and untar them. The vmlinuz and module files will automatically be moved to the required destinations.

 

[phreak0ut]

@Eddie and @Praka-Thanks a lot for showing much interest in this thread and keeping it alive. Well, I checked a similar thread running on the official forum and the solution was the same. Add /boot/vmlinuz............ and /boot/initrd. I think there is a problem with my HD as well as none of the other linux distros are ready to get installed. Its stops after formatting the drive and no data is getting copied. Checking the status of the disk with HDTune has resulted in a clean drive. No bad blocks. But one strange thing which happened was, I heard a screeching noise when my PC booted. Now its not working. I'll be checking the status of the drive with WD's tools and see what's wrong. I hope the drive is ok

IT'S WORKING!! IT'S WORKING!!IT'S WORKING!!IT'S WORKING!! Finally!!!!!!! I am able to boot the distro from Ubuntu's GRUB. My friend had given me a link to check out a video as to dual boot between XP and B|T. That method didn't work. I again thought of Praka's method and went through the transcript(text file) of the video. He copies the necessary directories to the place where he has mounted. So, I thought of just copying vmlinuz to the /boot directory and IT'S WORKING!!!!!!!!!! Yipeeeeeee!!!!!!!! Oh yeah, before doing this, I had to zero-fill the drive as it was acting strange. I did this though the extended test conducted by the HD tool showed it was fine. Just in case

 

[eddie]

I'll be checking the status of the drive with WD's tools and see what's wrong. I hope the drive is ok

From my personal experience, you should always check your drive using something like HDD Regenerator or SpinRite. That method is more reliable then any disk checking utility out there.

I have found that official drive checking tools some times report in favour of the manufacturer and ignore some drive malfunctions while a tool that is bought only when a problem is found...tends to do a more thorough job. Just my personal experience.

 

[phreak0ut]

@Eddie-I didn't know about tools from the manufacturer would do like this. Thanks for letting me know. I'll be checking with either of the tools.

 

[vignesh]

Boot manually into the second distro.. by pressing c at grub to go to a command line.Then install grub on the first sector of the second distro`s partition and add this

title Second distro
root (hd0,x)
chainloader +x

 

[praka123]

^^ but where his kernel(vmlinuz) and initrd(initrd) itself was missing from /boot.

 

[phreak0ut]

vignesh, thanks for letting me know. I've fixed the solution by just copying vmlinuz to /boot and making the necessary changes in menu.lst of GRUB

 

[praka123]

@freak:
U might be knowing that there is more than /boot/vmlinuz installed by kernel set up. there is /lib/modules/`uname -r` dir and initrd cpio image

 

[phreak0ut]

@freak:
U might be knowing that there is more than /boot/vmlinuz installed by kernel set up. there is /lib/modules/`uname -r` dir and initrd cpio image

Since everything is working fine for now, I think I'll not tweak(read mess ) around with the distro