[ILUG] cant install bootloader

[Peter Flynn]

   >the bootloader, which fails with no information, and won't go any
   >further (obviously :-)

   no, it fails with plenty of information, you're just not looking
   in the right place.  redhat's install process uses virtual consoles.

Cool, thanks. I'll give it another try tomorrow. Install routines
suck...they cater for every goddessdamn fringe circumstance except
the one that hit _you_ :-)

   alt-f2 will get you a shell 

Ah, but at what point...like, anywhere, any time during the install,
even when it's ripping open packages? Or only at pauses for prompts?

   (i used that to delete everything from
   /usr/doc and other places to squeeze in my virtual install into 300megs).
   alt-f[345] give result codes.

   my redhat 6.0 install failed at the same point.  i did the following:

   /mnt/bin/mount -o remount,rw /dev/root /  #this might not be needed.
   /mnt/sbin/insmod -f /modules/loop.o
   mv /bin/insmod /bin/insmod.old
   cp /mnt/bin/true /bin/insmod

   dunno if that will work for you - mine was failing because the loop.o

But mine is the otherwise fairly stable 5.2 which I have installed
in lots of places very happily without bootloader problems. I would
doubt very much if it was a loop.o or insmod problem in 5.2, esp
as I had 5.2 running on this machine before the disk upgrade. 

   as an aside redhat and caldera seem to be getting knocked for hiding
   info from the user (not in peter's message, but in places like /., etc).

The marketing guys are getting in on the act. 

   now i don't know about caldera, but redhat's quite opaque if you bother

So it would appear. I can see why, given the market they want to go
for, but I think it is a big mistake if a install dies, not to be
really explicit ("Your hard disk doesn't have enough space to put the
files on, go buy a bigger one" or "Your boot sector is unwritable, I'm
getting a return code 0x123456 at offset F00:BAA when I try to create
the bootloader")

   to look.  the virtual console thing is mentioned in their docs (though
   i found out about it because of a typo), and provides total control over
   the install.  here ends the rant...

Thanks for the info...although how access to a shell is going to help
if the bootloader is failing because of BIOS problems is beyond me
until I give it a poke. If I want to force a manual bootload and
actually watch it fail with all errors displayed, does anyone know
what the install script actually does at that point?

///Peter, still worried