Grub wont uncompress kernel image

[Thomas Beckett]

After installing the 07/01/06 daily of dapper (also same bug in flight2), when the install wants to restart for the first time just after installing grub it fails to boot.

When selecting the 2.6.15-11-386 option grub prints this:

----------------------------------------------------
Booting command-list

root(hd1,0)
Filesystemtype is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-8-386 root=/dev/hdb1 ro quiet splash
   [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x100, size=0x1534ad]
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-8-386
   [Linux-initrd@0x1fa95000,0x55a218 bytes]
savedefault
boot

----------------------------------------------------

This should happen and then the line similar to:
uncompressing Linux... ok to boot
should apear as it loads the kernel and boots but this does not happen in my case. the cursor just sits there blinking.

I have reinstalled Dapper over 10 times on 4 differnet hard disks in the same machine in various partition layouts but it makes no difference.

I installed Breezy onto the disk i want to use and it loads fine. I then dist-upgraded to Dapper. selecting the 2.6.12-9-386 breezy option boots fine and all packages are dapper packages. Selecting 2.6.15-11-386 again fails to load without any error at all. Both kernel images and initrd images are in the same place so hard disk access is not the problem.
I tried the k7 flavour but no luck....

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

I just tried again from the 11/01/06 daily and the kernel is still not loaded. After chrooting from a live CD I installed the 2.6.12 kernel and it boots fine using grub.
I then installed lilo to see if it was grub at fault but the same problem exists; I can boot when selecting the 2.6.12 kernel but the kernel is not uncompressed when selecting the 2.6.15 - it just sits blinking at me. It would seem that it is not grub at fault but something else. Is the kernel compressed differently for this release?

Should I resubmit the bug against the kernel?

Many thnaks.

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

This is what happens when I select the entry in grub for dapper. This one was taken from a flight 3 install.

[de.doughboy (de-doughboy)]

Perhaps it is aproblem in the partion table. Your screenshot (photo)shows your using ext2fs try using ext3 and set everything to automatic partioning. Note: you have to wipe the disk first using the Partion set up tool.

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

It is an ext3 partition. Ext3 is just ext2 with a journaling layer bolted on top so when booting it is mounted as ext2 as you dont need the journaling features to read a kernel image.

As stated in the original bug report - I have installed dapper many times on 4 different hard disks (both using automatic partitioning and my own layout) but the kernel is still not uncompressed. Besides, If grub cannot find the kernel to boot it throws an error but as you can see in my pic, there is no error at all.

[Ben Collins (ben-collins)]

First off, grub doesn't uncompress the kernel. The kernel image is wrapped in a bz program that uncompressed it into memory.

For things to be failing like this, the problem has to be in this decompression stage (the bz wrapper). Either grub isn't jumping to the correct place in this loaded program, isn't loading it to the right place, the bz wrapper is broken (highly doubtful), or the hardware has a memory related issue.

Have you run memtest to make sure everything there is ok? Try reseating your memory modules. Have you tried resetting your BIOS to factory defaults? This could also cause problems (badly mapped shadow memory, etc.).

[erdesc (erdesc)]

Hi,

I did upgrade from breezy-amd64 to dapper-amd64 and got a similar problem, not exactly the same but something like :

 /dev/sda2 does not exist. Back to a shell
Then launching busybox

I thought at first it was a problem with SATA. Something like a missing module in the initrd image.

After investigation, I realized that the /vmlinuz and /initrd.img liks as well as these .old files where missing.

Booting on the install-cd on a rescue mode and creating these links solved the problem.

If this is not the same bug, please do advice : Mine needs to be reported elsewhere.

Regards,

Eric

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

Ben, I tried the memtest and it gave me Error:28, that it wont fit into memory.
I have 896mb ram so thre is room :P.
I reset the bios to defaults and made sure video and bios shadows were dissabled but no joy.
Its looking more like my ram is faulty. Ill get some more and let you know if it solves it.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Removing generic Ubuntu reference, bug is already associated with the kernel and can be reassigned from there if necessary

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

I changed memory but still it fails to uncompress.
I ran the flight 4 live CD and that boots fine. Installing perminantly through Espresso was fine but on reboot, the same problem exists.

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

I ran the memtest from the flight4 liveCD and it runs fine.
The memtest from Breezy and those before all failed when installed, but the installation booted, its just dapper that has decided not to.

[Jarbas Peixoto Junior (jarbas-junior)]

I installed Ubuntu Dapper Flight 4 from Live CD and from Install CD and have the same problem above with grub.

In my house I install the Kubuntu Flight 3 and upgrade the packages and the Kernel. It works for me. Now (2006/03/06) I have the:
root@jarbelix:~# uname -a
Linux jarbelix.sytes.net 2.6.15-17-686 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Mar 3 01:37:48 UTC 2006 i686 GNU/Linux

In my work I try change the Mandriva by Ubuntu Dapper and not work.

I find that he can be some thing related with the Kernel.

[Daniel James (daniel-netbreeze)]

I have this exact same problem on an nforce 1 motherboard. Is there any progress on this? I have this problem with Dapper Flight 4 and Flight 5. I'll attach a screenshot of something very similary happening on my machine..

[Ben Collins (ben-collins)]

Remove the "quiet" from the command line. I need to be able to see everything that the kernel output.

[Vijay Kumar Mateti (vijaymateti)]

same happened to me kernel didn't decompress after booting from grub. I've installed both flight 5 and daily build of 18th march but both of them made no difference.

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

Me too; I removed the quiet and splash from the grub line and it made no difference at all. exactly the same output as my original shot shows.

[Daniel James (daniel-netbreeze)]

removing 'quiet' doesn't change anything...

but! if I add vga=ask I do get a mode selection menu. But then it stops booting immediately after changing the video mode.

[Ben Collins (ben-collins)]

I'm going to have to put this on grub. The fact the the CD boots the exact same kernel that doesn't boot after install just kind of alleviates the issue being the kernel. The only thing I can think of is that grub just isn't setting things up right.

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

I just noticed that Daniel James and I both have Nforce besed motherboards (mine is nforce 2 based, his is nforce1). I just replied to the ubuntu-users list to Sridhar M.A. who has the same problem and is also running on a nforce board. Could this be a source of the problem? I have already submitted my hardware using the hwdb-gui on breezy, ill attach my number tonight so you can see the full hardware.

[Daniel James (daniel-netbreeze)]

Regarding Thomas' comment..

I have an nforce1 board that is not working, however.. I also have an nforce2 board.. and it *is* working.. *sigh*

My hwdb-gui submission for the nforce2 board is:

ed3279e2b53ca9f1fb2a726948ce2070

Hopefully this will help track the problem down..

[mas (mas-mylug)]

Just following on Thomas Beckett's advice. I am facing a problem with booting the machine after installation of Dapper/Flight 5. The machine hangs similarly. The motherboard on my machine is ASUS-A7N266-VM with Nforce onboard graphics.

FWIW, hoary and breezy did not have any problems with this machine.

[Daniel James (daniel-netbreeze)]

Just a quick comment to say that my machine that will not boot is also an a7n266-vm

[Daniel James (daniel-netbreeze)]

I managed to get my machine to boot nicely by recompiling the kernel and only removing the EDD configuration that is referred to in https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.15/+bug/33939

In my case at least this seems to be the issue...

[Łukasz Halman (lukasz-halman)]

Removing the EDD option from kernel helps people whose computers eventually boot anyway, but it takes very long time. Where "long time" is anywhere from 20 seconds to 10 minutes (it actually depends on length and number of grub parameters).

Removing "boot=/dev/hdaX" might have the same effect.

[Daniel James (daniel-netbreeze)]

Btw.. removing EDD helped me as well.. My machine did not boot.. after removing only EDD it now boots perfectly..

[mas (mas-mylug)]

Tried passing edd=off|skip to the kernel. even then my machine did not boot.

[Daniel James (daniel-netbreeze)]

My machine would not boot with edd=off passed to the kernel either. Not sure if my machine would not boot for the same reason as yours.. but I had to actually recompile my kernel without EDD ....

[mas (mas-mylug)]

Today tried a different route. Installed breezy and upgraded to dapper. No major problems. But, even the new kernel in dapper (2.6.15-19-386) does not boot. But, 2.6.12 boots.

Additional problem is I do not have a working X now. After loggin in the gdm, I get the message

   I could not start your session and so I have started the failsafe xterm session.....

There is just one gnome-terminal windows minus the window decorations. Alsa is not loaded.

[Łukasz Halman (lukasz-halman)]

Breezy kernel - 2.6.12 - doesn't have EDD compiled in.

[mas (mas-mylug)]

Not exactly. From the config files

    /boot/config-2.6.12-9-386
         # CONFIG_EDD is not set

    /boot/config-2.6.15-19-386
         CONFIG_EDD=m

How does one prevent the kernel from loading this module? Passing a parameter did not help.

[mas (mas-mylug)]

Tried flight-6 on my machine. The non-booting issue still persists. Would it cause major problems if EDD support is not enabled? I have been running without that being enabled and so far have not seen any problems.

[mas (mas-mylug)]

A big thanks for the developers. The new kernel image 2.6.15-20 has removed the EDD and now my machine boots with the stock kernel.

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

I tried the daily (10th April) and all is fixed. I guess it must have been the EDD.

Many thanks

[Tom Simonsen (toms-pinglebo)]

I have exactly the same problem (I have a nForce 1 mobo).

Is there any easy way to solve this now that I have installed ?
Or do I have to bite the bullet, install 05.10 and upgrade to dapper ?

[Thomas Beckett (thomas-beckett)]

If it is your dapper install that has this problem then you can either reinstall using the latest daily cd which fixes this problem or you can do the following:

*Boot any linux LiveCD
*bring up a terminal and mount your installed partition
mount /dev/hda3 /mnt (change hda3 to reflect your partition)
*chroot /mnt
*source /etc/profile
*apt-get update
*apt-get dist-upgrade

This will update the installed partition with the latest packages including the new build of the kernel that has EDD turned off.
Reboot and it should load fine.

Hope it helps

[Tom Simonsen (toms-pinglebo)]

Thanks for the tips.

As there wasn't anything on the machine, I did an breezy install and upgraded to dapper. But I think I will try the rescue CD route just for kicks - it is handy for later emergencies.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Beginning with the Hardy Heron 8.04 development cycle, all open Ubuntu kernel bugs need to be reported against the "linux" kernel package. We are automatically migrating this linux-source-2.6.15 kernel bug to the new "linux" package. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we make this transition. Also, if you would be interested in testing the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release, it is available at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . Please let us know your results. Thanks!