Tom "Nifty Hat" Mitchell was helping Jeremy Conlin.
Tom asked:
> Are you seeing the graphical boot screen or the old style
> text display with a the green OK messages. In text mode
> it can be easier to see errors.
Jeremy replied:
> I see a graphical grub allowing me to up or down arrow to select which
> kernel to boot (or I can push one of several different keys to add
> additional options.)
You'll need one of those options. Press "e" to edit the line. Delete
"rhgb quiet" from the line that's got them (it should start "kernel..."
or "/boot/vmlinuz..."
The "quiet" gets rid of some of the boot-up messages: you want to see
them all. RHGB is the Red Hat Graphical Boot: without it, you get the
old-style text boot. This both has less to go wrong and is better for
troubleshooting.
Tom asked:
> Can you boot to any of these initstates?
>
> # 1 - Single user mode
> # 2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3,
> if you do not have networking)
> # 3 - Full multiuser mode
> # 5 - X11
The easiest way to temporarily boot to a different init state is by
adding (a space and) the appropriate number to the end of the kernel
boot line you've just edited...
Tom recommended:
> In rescue mode can you comment out the fstab lines
> for your SCSI RAID files system and if so does the box boot.
Jeremy got frightened ;-)
> You are beginning to get way outside of my area of expertise. I don't
> even know what fstab is but I would love to know. Keep in mind that I
> cannot exclude the SCSI RAID device(s) because that is where my hard
> drives are.
Don't worry: we'll guide you.
Can you use the command line to find your way around the Linux file tree?
In the /etc directory (where system-level configuration is kept), you'll
find a file called fstab. This lists all the filesystems known to the
system (a filesystem is what you put on a partition when you format it).
Use cat or less (or more, if you're used to it) to view it.
The comment symbol for fstab is the hash (#). If you put that at the
beginning of a line, Fedora will ignore it. This means that you can put
messages like
# Jeremy took this out to get the system to boot
in there, or put a hash at the beginning of an otherwise valid line to
disable it (yet make it easy to re-enable it).
If you have a preferred editor use that. If not, see if nano is
installed on your box. Practice on a safe file somewhere first!
You will need to use nano -w to stop it line-wrapping.
Ask if you have any more questions, and let us know how you get on.
Good luck!
James.
--
E-mail address: james | Og just boggle how stupid spammer is. How stupid
@westexe.demon.co.uk | spamhaus is. How stupid spamhaven is. Og thought
| there was such thing as "evolution". How all these
| stupid people still alive? Og boggle. Boggle Og.
| -- Caveman Og
