Re: 386 boot problems with 2.4.7 and 2.4.7-ac9

Carl-Johan Kjellander
2001-08-09T12:06:07Z

Maciej Zenczykowski wrote:
>>The system is a 386DX with an Award 3.15c BIOS. The distribution
>>is smalllinux i think, but I've modified it a lot.
>>
>
> 99% sure that your problem is binaries for 486 and up, had this problem
> installing RedHat 7.1 on a 486 with no CDROM drive - did the installation
> on a Pentium 3, then it would not boot, compiled a new kernel for 486,
> installed that on the P 3, now it booted on the 486 but would not run
> init. The binaries were for 686 and refused to run...

As I said in my post, the distribution is not Red Hat, but smalllinux,
a very tiny floppydistribution that runs on a 386 with as low as 2MB RAM
(Mine has 4MB).

I only compile new kernels on my Red Hat machine and yes I do compile
it for the 386:

# Processor type and features
#
CONFIG_M386=y

My 386 boots stock 2.4.3 fine but not 2.4.7.

> PS. There should be a choich when installing RedHat in advanced mode what
> processor you want to install for - often enough the computer you are
> installing on is not quite the same as the one it will be running on.
>

You can do always try to install from the harddrive or via NFS, ftp or
http from your other machines. Red Hat does a lot of smart things during
the install and you have to make sure that for instance glibc is not
the i686 rpm.