Installing Linux Slackware 8.1 on a P1 with Doze 95 version B

I'm trying to install Slackware 8.1 on my computer. Internet explorer was corrupted and i said screw it, im not gonna put doze back on. I've set the bios to boot from the CD-ROM then the Floppy, then finaly my IDE harddrive. No matter what, it still does not boot from the CD-ROM, even though my other computer does (I'm not allowed to install it on that one, it's my father's computer from work). I already have made a new partition on the main drive of 2.055 GB and formatted it using MS-DOS (the version it puts you in when u click "restart in dos" with Doze 95. Any help at all would be appreciated (i'm getting pretty desperate).

Also, i need to know wat the "init" boot command for linux is and wat i should enter. When i try using a boot disk it gets a decent ways into it then says something along the lines of "kernel panic, pass init= at boot prompt" or something close to that.


System Specs-

-Pentium I 233
-32MB Unknown Type (old, 72 pins)
-ATI 3D-RAGE II Video Card
-4GB IDE harddrive divided into: one 2GB Windows/DOS Partition, and one 2GB DOS Partition to install Linux onto
-Standard IDE 3.5" Floppy Diskette Drive
-Standard 32(?)x IDE CD-ROM Drive

You might want to try creating a boot diskette, from there it would load cd-rom drivers and continue the install from there.



PuRe

I have been using Slackware since about 96' and have had the same issue you are seeing with respect to a bootable CD on several occassions, but just never looked too deep into it because I had other systems on which to do the install, etc.

Kind of a pain in the butt, but whenever I wanted Slack badly enough on a box that couldn't boot the CD, I would stick the drive in a box that would, ... do the install..., and then stick the drive back in the intended box. That's pretty much a kludgey way to do it, but it works. :)

As for the floppies, make sure you are using the correct 'root' and 'boot' floppies for your hardware. Slackware is a lot more picky in this respect than a Distro like Mandrake which makes all the decisions it can for you. The symptoms you posted are what I have usually seen when I tried to boot an image meant for SCSI hardware on an IDE system, etc.

The trade off is that after a little use, and lost sleep during the noob phase you will emerge more knowledgeable than your Mandrake/Suse/RedHat brethern who have not gone through these growing pains.

Sorry to drone on with my pro-Slackware propaganda/spam.... Remeber: User friendly = stupid users :)

It's possible that your box can't boot from CD-rom. Your motherboard bios and CD-rom drive need to support El Torito indexing in order to be able to boot from CD-rom. Also self burned cd's could make some trouble on certain older cd readers.

My advice is to create a bootable floppy and to install from that.

Quote:

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Pentium I 233

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???
Wouldn't this be: Pentium II 233Mhz ???

Hey spurious_inode, I love the signature. : )



PuRe

aright, thanx everyone. ya, i already tried boot/root disks. that's y i asked about the init cmd
w/e i would boot it up, once it finished everything, i would mention a "kernel panic" and say to pass init= option to the kernel. as far as the put the HD in a puter that would load the disk, i thought of that too, i have to beat up my friend til he lets me lol. i think i heard something about the slackware 8.1 disk being "ISO" or w/e and how that would make it so that older computers couldn't read it. either way, that puter is shot i think. just tried installing 98 (that boot cd would work) and the thing froze as soon as you hit "run setup from doze 98 cd-rom". the motherboard is prolly goin, the puter is pretty old. oh well, thnx anyway, everyone! BTW, righteous sig spurious



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