I just posted a GID Community blog entitled: Linux on Dell Precision M90 - Part III: Kernel Update.


Please let me know what you think.

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Hi, I'm very glad to have found this documentation of your putting Slackware on a Dell m90, as that is exactly what I'm trying to do. I've been following your instructions verbatim, but I'm stuck with a problem at the point of upgrading the kernel. After trying to boot into kernel 2.6.18.1, I get a black screen.

I have followed your Kernel Installation Guide (which is very helpful) and implemented the changes you recommend for the M90. I have updated my lilo.conf and my fstab. I have not found any information in /var/log/ although I'm not certain which file to check. None of the timestamps correspond to my failed boot, though.

I'm fairly sure this is due to the SATA bus configurations, as you mentioned that may render the system unbootable (although I can boot off my slack11 install dvd, change fstab back, and then boot into the 2.4 kernel fine). The settings you recommended seem good to me; I'm not sure what to change. Under 2.4, lspci lists an "IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controler (rev 01)", which I'm pretty sure is the drive in question.

This would be a lot easier for me to troubleshoot if I had a single error message, but all I get is a black screen. Any ideas?

First of all, thanks for the comments. The reason to do something like this is in the hope that someone will find it useful.

The blank screen is baffling me. Generally if there was a problem going from hda designation to the sda designation you would get a fatal kernel panic during boot up.

At what point are you getting the blank screen? Are you getting to the LILO screen? Does it go through any bootup sequence?

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The best damn Sports Blog period.

Lilo prompts me, and if I type linux2.6 it says it's loading. Elipses then follow out to the end of the line. Lilo's behavior is just like when I sucessfully load the 2.4 kernel. So I think Lilo is working fine.

Then the screen clears and nothing more is printed to it.

I really appreciate your help with this.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

This is a real head scratcher.

Have you enabled Video Mode selection support by chance?

Under Device Drivers/Graphics support/Console display driver support.

Also have you enabled support for Frame Buffer Devices?

If you have try disabling both of these.

That is the only thing that I can think of. Instead of using a text screen, it is using a graphical console that may not be working with your hardware.

Are you currently booting into run mode level 4? If so, I would suggest going back to 3 until this is figured out.

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The best damn Sports Blog period.

Yes. Thanks so much. I don't think I would have figured it out on my own. Disabling frame buffering allowed me to view the kernel panic, and after some tweaking I now have a working custom kernel. I really appreciate your help so much. Thanks.