Lilo/HDD/Network Issue
Forum: HD Install
Topic: Lilo/HDD/Network Issue
started by: eob
Posted by eob on June 23 2007,19:43
Bit of a strange one this 
Can't get Lilo to work, but, only if my network card is installed! 
Install is on an old IBM Aptiva (~400mhz, 128MB of RAM). Network card is an ancient 3Com 905x (ie, it'll work with any OS known to man. It's got three LED's for jebus sake!! ;))
Any suggestions?
Posted by eob on June 24 2007,15:28
No updates on this no? What I should've said (above) of course is that Lilo WON'T WORK if my network card is in. DSL detects the network card fine when I boot with the CD, but Lilo, when the machine boots, just spits out 'LIL_' and freezes at that point? Any suggestions?
Posted by lucky13 on June 24 2007,15:33
LILO doesn't do hardware detection, it only loads Linux. There's most likely something wrong with your lilo.conf. EDIT: Or there's something wrong with your hard drive. Can you mount it off the CD and do you get any filesystem errors when you try?See boot errors:
< http://www.penguin-soft.com/penguin/man/8/lilo.html >
Posted by eob on June 24 2007,22:04
I'm a little further down the line I was accidentally running cfdisk /dev/HDD1 instead of /dev/HDD and I couldn't understand why the partitions weren't working
I'm still healthily stuck on getting the thing to actually work, but at least I'm now a little closer to the end. The weird thing is that once it's successfully installed on the HDD, the PC won't run LILO if the network card is in. It'll just display LIL_ and stop there!! Never seen anything like it, because, as you pointed out, LILO shouldn't even be mildly affected by the network card, especially one as common/widely accepted as a 3Com...
Posted by eob on June 25 2007,00:12
This is weirder than weird...I went back and started from scratch with a fresh install on a new HDD.
sudo -s
cf /dev/hdd
Just turned the entire HDD into one big Linux partition
Rebooted
Installed DSL to the HDD (non-Frugal).
No Boot Handler
Took the DSL CD out
Rebooted
Nothing... Just a flashing cursor on the screen.
Shut it down
Rebooted with the DSL CD in.
Went through the install procedure again, this time using GRUB.
Nothing.
Went through the install procedure again, this time using LILO.
Bingo!
We have DSL on the HDD
Shut it down. Plugged in the network card, started it up.
Again, LILO spits out 'LIL' then pauses there with a flashing cursor
I thought Linux was supposed to love networks?
Posted by eob on June 25 2007,00:19
Done some Googling, found this| Quote |
| LIL? The second stage boot loader has been loaded at an incorrect address. This is typically caused by a subtle geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without running the map installer. LIL- The descriptor table is corrupt. This can either be caused by a geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/map without running the map installer. |
Why would having the network card in or out affect LILO's parameters? Anyone?
Posted by lucky13 on June 25 2007,11:27
It's not the NIC. It's either the hard drive (physically or the way you partitioned) or the way you've set up LILO.
Posted by eob on June 25 2007,14:07
Then how come I can turn Lilo on/off using only the network card? Seriously, it's insane. I put the network card in, it stalls at 'LIL'. I take the network card out, it loads fine!Hard to believe but I'll post a video if you don't believe me!
Posted by roberts on June 25 2007,14:15
Perhaps an irq conflict. What is the irq of the net card?When booting without the net card take a look at the irq of your ide controller
dmesg | grep -i irq | grep ide
Is it possible to change irq assigned to netcard, either on the card or via BIOS settings? Maybe turn off plug and play??
Posted by eob on June 25 2007,14:49
I tried mucking around with the BIOS settings. I didn't want to change the PCi settings manually til I made sure the 'Restore the BIOS To Default' option was working. Bizarrely, it didn't work with PCi IRQ sharing disabled, works fine with PCi IRQ sharing enabled? Only one PCi card installed?I deliberately, btw, removed an old old modem that was installed before I installed DSL (don't need the modem) but I was shocked to see that DSL even detected that on-boot as having a Rockwell chipset.
This OS has such huge potential.
Posted by lucky13 on June 25 2007,20:56
| Quote |
| Only one PCi card installed? |
If the NIC's IRQ settings are askew, yes. You have to remember you're dealing with something that's precise in how it recognizes and works with things connected to it. You can reconfigure your hardware or reconfigure the OS, but you're screwed until you do if there's a conflict.
Reminds me of something that came up here in the forum a few weeks ago. Guy couldn't get DSL to boot (or something like that). When he mentioned the age of his hardware, it reminded me of a problem I had with the way Dell had jumpered the hard drive in my NT box -- like 12-13 years ago. My computer worked fine in the way Dell had pre-configured NT, but it was totally messed up when I tried to install Linux because neither the hard drive nor ZIP drive was jumpered. At all. When I fixed it to suit Linux, it broke when I had to run NT. So I had to reconfigure NT.
Sometimes the OEMs set things up in screwy ways that work with their old Windows configurations but won't work with other operating systems (like Linux). If you do have an IRQ conflict related to that NIC, I'm almost willing to bet your computer -- or the one the NIC is from -- was assembled by Dell, Gateway (eMachines), Compaq (HP), or one of the other mass assemblers.