[Devil-Linux-discuss] Oops

[<fr...@sp...>]

Hello!

I've been trying to load DL 1.2.3 onto an antique IBM Thinkpad 760LD:  100 MHz Pentium I, 40 Meg RAM, 1 Gig HD, 16 Meg PCMCIA flash hard drive, and - where my problem probably arises - an interchangeable CD-ROM and floppy drive.  Only one can be present at a time, and they are not hot-pluggable.  So the gzipped configuration file must reside on either the CD-ROM or the PCMCIA card.

I get to the final stage in the boot process, it sets up the file systems, then there are two errors, the final one fatal.
The first goes by very quickly, but contains the message "Unable to handle kernel paging request at 22A4".  

Then follows:
Starting LVM
<6>LVM version 1.0.8(17/11/2003) module loaded
Unable to hand kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 000002E0
printing EIP:
00000019
*pgd = 0000000000000000
*pmd = 0000000000000000
Oops: 002
EIP: 0050:[<00000019>]  Not tainted
EFLAGS: 00010096

I suspect that if I were able to boot from the PCMCIA card with the HD not present (theoretically possible, but I don't know how to put the proper material on the PCMCIA card, nor do I know what material is proper),  it might well work, as the TP760LD can be set up to boot from the PCMCIA card.

Why am I doing all this?  I'm setting up a small web server, and old laptops are ideal for the job:  self-contained, low power, internal battery backup, and fast enough to do the job.  DL is ideal for this task (I'm a bit paranoid - when I got my DSL line several years ago, I put DL 0.5 on an old box, and got my first port scan in about 20 minutes.  Things are worse now.)

It may be that this is a hopeless task - but the kernel problem might be worth looking into.   Thanks for whatever advice you can give.

By the way, is there some way that the CD-ROM could not be finalized, but set up as a multi-session recording, so that files could be added to the CD simply, rather than by re-building the ISO?  (That looks like work at this point...)

Finally, a gigantic THANK YOU to Heiko and the team!  DL is a good piece of work - you are greatly appreciated!

--Fred