[GLLUG] Still Trying to Install Kubuntu

Daniel Hedlund daniel at digitree.org
Tue Sep 26 22:07:21 EDT 2006


Mike,

Michael McCarty wrote:
> Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernal.
> [17179569.184000] ACPI: Unable to locate RSDP
> [ 107.725529] invalid compressed format (err=2)
> [ 107.731940] Kernal panic-not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 
> unknown-block(1,0)
> [ 107.732022]
> 
> Any ideas on the problem and a possible solution?

How old is the system you're using to try to boot the CD?  This problem 
appears to be related to some computer BIOSes not supporting booting 
from floppy images larger than a 1.44MB floppy disk.  I believe (at 
least this used to be the case a few years ago) that to boot from a 
CD-ROM you had to specify a floppy disk image that would be placed at 
the very start of the CD.  When the system would boot up it would detect 
the floppy image and read it into memory, booting off of it pretending 
like it was a floppy disk.  That image would then tell how to access and 
read information off of the CD.  Images used to have to be restricted to 
1.44MB as a result.  I know that the isolinux project made some 
improvements on this and found ways to circumvent the 1.44MB limit.

There is a reasonably likely chance that the Kubuntu CDs you're booting 
from have a boot image that exceeds the 1.44 MB limit.  If your BIOS 
only supports emulation mode but doesn't support 'non-emulation' mode, 
you might be in a bit of a pickle.

Have you been able to get any other recent Linux distributions to boot 
onto the computer?  I'm sure some distros still have 1.44MB image-based 
boot images for compatibility.

Have a look at the following link for an example of the problem I'm 
describing.  You could probably also do a Google search yourself for 
more relevant links based on what you find here:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=8521

Cheers,

Daniel Hedlund
daniel at digitree.org


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