Syslinux - Feb 2008 - EXTLINUX: Reading the extlinux.conf but can't find Kernel

Hi Folks,

OK - I'm not entirely new to Linux but I'm certainly not great on the 
boot process. What I'm trying to achieve is to boot from an external USB 
HDD (not flash drive) using EXTLINUX.

I've run an installation against the disk using a VM. The disk was 
partitioned as follows:

/dev/sda1 = /boot (bootable)
/dev/sda2 =/swap
/dev/sda3=/ (i.e. root)
/dev/sda4=/dos

sda1 and 3 are formatted as EXT3 .. sda4 is FAT32.

As far as I can see, I've followed the instructions correctly and 
initialised extlinux against the /boot/extlinux directory I've created. 
MBR has been copied to /dev/sda
extlinux.conf has been created and I know that it's being read at boot 
time (I left a SAY command in the file which appears at boot).

However - I always get the message returned "Could not find Kernel 
Image" then the path I specify to my kernel.

My understanding is that this will be the vmlinuz entry in the /boot 
directory (which in my case is vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server). So I've 
specified /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server as the value for my 
extlinux.conf kernel parameter but it doesn't seem to be recognised.

It's obvious that I'm missing something here - and it's probably a
hole
in my understanding of how this should work - but if anyone can help 
plug that gap then please help.

Regards
Dan

Please send your extlinux config file

I think it's something in your config file


On 2/5/08 4:12 PM, "Dan Keating" <dan at silverlotus.co.uk>
wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> OK - I'm not entirely new to Linux but I'm certainly not great on
the
> boot process. What I'm trying to achieve is to boot from an external
USB
> HDD (not flash drive) using EXTLINUX.
> 
> I've run an installation against the disk using a VM. The disk was
> partitioned as follows:
> 
> /dev/sda1 = /boot (bootable)
> /dev/sda2 =/swap
> /dev/sda3=/ (i.e. root)
> /dev/sda4=/dos
> 
> sda1 and 3 are formatted as EXT3 .. sda4 is FAT32.
> 
> As far as I can see, I've followed the instructions correctly and
> initialised extlinux against the /boot/extlinux directory I've created.
> MBR has been copied to /dev/sda
> extlinux.conf has been created and I know that it's being read at boot
> time (I left a SAY command in the file which appears at boot).
> 
> However - I always get the message returned "Could not find Kernel
> Image" then the path I specify to my kernel.
> 
> My understanding is that this will be the vmlinuz entry in the /boot
> directory (which in my case is vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server). So I've
> specified /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server as the value for my
> extlinux.conf kernel parameter but it doesn't seem to be recognised.
> 
> It's obvious that I'm missing something here - and it's
probably a hole
> in my understanding of how this should work - but if anyone can help
> plug that gap then please help.
> 
> Regards
> Dan
> 
> _______________________________________________
> SYSLINUX mailing list
> Submissions to SYSLINUX at zytor.com
> Unsubscribe or set options at:
> http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
> Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.
>

Dan Keating wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> OK - I'm not entirely new to Linux but I'm certainly not great on
the
> boot process. What I'm trying to achieve is to boot from an external
USB
> HDD (not flash drive) using EXTLINUX.
> 
> I've run an installation against the disk using a VM. The disk was 
> partitioned as follows:
> 
> /dev/sda1 = /boot (bootable)
> /dev/sda2 =/swap
> /dev/sda3=/ (i.e. root)
> /dev/sda4=/dos
> 
> sda1 and 3 are formatted as EXT3 .. sda4 is FAT32.
> 
> As far as I can see, I've followed the instructions correctly and 
> initialised extlinux against the /boot/extlinux directory I've created.
> MBR has been copied to /dev/sda
> extlinux.conf has been created and I know that it's being read at boot 
> time (I left a SAY command in the file which appears at boot).
> 
> However - I always get the message returned "Could not find Kernel 
> Image" then the path I specify to my kernel.
> 
> My understanding is that this will be the vmlinuz entry in the /boot 
> directory (which in my case is vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server). So I've 
> specified /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server as the value for my 
> extlinux.conf kernel parameter but it doesn't seem to be recognised.
> 
> It's obvious that I'm missing something here - and it's
probably a hole
> in my understanding of how this should work - but if anyone can help 
> plug that gap then please help.
> 
Yes, the problem is that /boot in your case is the root of a filesystem, 
so the file that is called "/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server" in your 
filesystem is called "/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server" as far as extlinux is
concerned.

If you make a relative filename it will be relative to /boot/extlinux, 
so you could also specify it as "../vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-server" if
you'd
prefer.

	-hpa