Kernel Panic: No init found...

[jalbes]

Hi:
I'm a long time windows user, first time Linux user.

I just got my hands on an old pentium 233 with 32megs of RAM, and I wanted to make a firewall/router for my home network. So naturally, after reading some articles, I chose Linux.

But as always, something had to go wrong.

I started with Slackware, and after booting up with 6 boot disks, I would get an error on the last disk. A taste of things to come! Thinking that it was just a bad copy I decided to atleast see how Win 2000 would run on it. Once installed it ran ok, but took 7 minutes to boot, lol.

So I downloaded Mandrake Linux, and botted from CD. I've tried installing it 3 time, in 3 different ways (basic, advanced and without NIC cards). But once finished installing and I reboot to login, it stops at this error:

VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev ide0(3,1).
mount: error 22 mounting ext3 flags Freeing unused kerel memory: 260k
Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.

I'm new to this, but it seems like it's unable to find my hard drive or partition.

Is this correct? And does anyone know how I can go about correcting this problem?

[jalbes]

OK, I've given up on the linux bit and gone with a much simpler solution for my firewall/router setup.

I downloaded Coyote Linux and tried that on. Overall, I was very pleased with the ease of setting it up and its performance.

But I do have one question about coyote linux. Do I require a hub to connect more pc's to the Router PC? Right now I only have the one Client PC conected to the Router PC, but I'll be hooking up a roomates PC in a few weeks.

So can I just add more NIC cards to that Router PC, or will I need a hub?

Thanx,
Shaun

[kilgoretrout]

You can just add more nics but you'll have to configure the new interfaces. Check your coyote documentation. By the way, the minimum system requirements for mandrake include 64 MB of ram which may have been your problem. Coyote is a much better choice for what you want to do.

[jalbes]

Oh, I thought that it was 32megs for the minimum requirements on mandrake (I was using 8.2). Oh well, I found out about Coyote Linux from a few threads posted here and I'm very satisfied with it, thus far!

kilgoretrout, thanx for the response, As soon as my roomate brings his PC up from his hometown, I'll hopefully get his pc connected to the router too. If I have anymore problems, I'll know who to ask, lol.

Thanx again,
Shaun

[kilgoretrout]

8.2 is 32MB of ram but some graphics cards insist on taking up some of the ram for themselves through the bios leaving you short, at least from the installer's point of view. 9.0 and up are 64MB IIRC. Integrated graphics adapters are the worst offenders.
Glad your up and running. Good luck with your project.

[jalbes]

kilgoretrout, thats exactly what the problem must have been! This system has upto 4 megs of video, but is integrated with my 32mb of ram. So I knocked it down to 1mb via the bios hoping that the ram would've been sufficient for Linux, but I guess not.

Hmmm... Funny little computer!

I might pick up somemore ram, (another 32 or 64mb if available) and see if I can get linux running.

I think it'll be a good learning experience. Plus I'd be able to put up a web server. Can't do that with Coyote Linux unless I use one of my client machines, which I don't want to do.

Shaun