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linux 2010 and ubuntu 10.4 on the same computer

beefeater
beefeater Posts: 7
in Getting Started with Linux

Hi forum

I am very new to linux and have been experimenting with various distros

I have ubuntu 10.4 As my main os but have just loaded linux 2010 side by side

with ubuntu however 2010 will not load from the boot menu what may have gone wrong

:(

thanks in advance for any help or ideas you can give me

Comments

  • Goineasy9
    Goineasy9 Posts: 1,114
    OK, you're going to have to help us out a bit. Linux 2010 is not a distro, could you take another look and see what it is you installed? Could it be Mandriva Spring 2010?
  • beefeater
    beefeater Posts: 7
    Hi karma

    the disc title is PClinuxOs 2010 from linux magazine137 november
  • Goineasy9
    Goineasy9 Posts: 1,114
    My guess is that the grub menu wasn't set up correctly when you installed PCLinuxOS. I don't have a copy of PCLinuxOS running at the moment, do you know where your grub and menu.lst files are. If you do, I would be interested to see what it contains, you can post it here. First I'm looking for menu.lst it may be called menu.list in some distros. Let me know how you make out.
  • beefeater
    beefeater Posts: 7
    Hi karma

    the only information I can find are some of the messages shown after the boot for linux 2010
    has failed

    Please append a correct "root="option

    here are available partition options

    Kernel panic not syncing

    ufs unable to mount root ts on unknown block

    swapper not tainted 2.6.33.5pc losl.bfs#1:

    :ohmy: :

    Double Dutch to me hope it means something to you

    Cheers
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    That means that the bootloader is unable to find a valid root partition in the location listed in your bootloader configuration file.

    Now you are saying that the pclinuxos installation is not booting correctly, generally when a new installation is done it will overwrite the prior installations bootloader with the new one, which means that ideally pclinuxos should have overwritten ubuntu's bootloader with it's own.

    To be able to instruct you further we need to figure out exactly which installation(s) fail to boot, we need to see the output of the command "fdisk -l" and we need to see the contents of /boot/grub/menu.list

    as a note please do not just call the installation linux 2010 call it PclinuxOS so people know what distro you are talking about.
  • beefeater
    beefeater Posts: 7
    Hi Karma

    The boot menu reads ;


    GNU GRUBversion1.98-1 ubuntu 7

    ubuntu with linux2.6.32-24- generic ( recovery mode)
    ubuntu with linux2.6.32-24
    ubuntu with linux2.6.32-24-generic ( recovery mode)
    memory test (memtes86+)
    memory test (memtes86+) serial console 115200

    linux (on/dev/sd1a1)
    linux-non fb (on/dev/sd1a1)
    failsafe on /dev/sd1a1


    Entering the command, produced- command not known



    Cheers
  • saqman2060
    saqman2060 Posts: 777
    Why are there two generic recovery modes of the same type? Usually you only see one recovery for the kernal you installed.
    And, should the recovery mode be before the actuall OS?
  • gomer
    gomer Posts: 158
    If you are sure you have both distributions installed, then you clearly must have at least one disk with multiple partitions, if not multiple disks. In Ubuntu, determine the disk that Ubuntu booted from. Look at your /etc/fstab.

    then issue the command "sudo fdisk -l" to get a list of all the drives / partitions on your machine.

    Provide both lists of output here.

    Then, we'll have to figure out whether or not that other distribution built a separate /boot partition, or not, and we'll have to try and figure out ehther or not the boot loader is grub 1 or grub 2 or something else. We might be able to skip the second stage of the boot loader and go right to the kernel of the second distribution from the Ubuntu instance of grub2, but there's still a bit of work ahead of us.
  • beefeater
    beefeater Posts: 7
    Goineasy9 wrote:
    OK, you're going to have to help us out a bit. Linux 2010 is not a distro, could you take another look and see what it is you installed? Could it be Mandriva Spring 2010?
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    It sounds like you are confused at to where to issue the commands we requested, the command should be run the in the terminal of a running instance of a Linux based distribution. Such as booting into ubuntu or pclinuxos, opening a terminal, then running the commands.
  • beefeater
    beefeater Posts: 7
    mfillpot wrote:
    That means that the bootloader is unable to find a valid root partition in the location listed in your bootloader configuration file.

    Now you are saying that the pclinuxos installation is not booting correctly, generally when a new installation is done it will overwrite the prior installations bootloader with the new one, which means that ideally pclinuxos should have overwritten ubuntu's bootloader with it's own.

    To be able to instruct you further we need to figure out exactly which installation(s) fail to boot, we need to see the output of the command "fdisk -l" and we need to see the contents of /boot/grub/menu.list

    as a note please do not just call the installation linux 2010 call it PclinuxOS so people know what distro you are talking about.
  • beefeater
    beefeater Posts: 7
    Hi forum

    As stated earlier I am very new to linux and I am a computer rookie

    All I want to do is use linux for music, the web, and e.mail, photos ,and some printing,

    I do not want to get involved in becoming a linux expert.

    Thank you for all your help and support, I have re loaded PC linuxOS 2010

    As the sole os on my computer

    I have the web, music ,photos ,all I need now is for some kind forum member

    To tell me simply how to connect an Epson sx215 printer to the linux os I have got

    Cheers and thanks again to all contributors you are a caring forum

    beefeater

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