[lug] weird grub / x11 problem

[bgiles]

At this point I have no fracking idea what's going on, just that the 
system is unbootable.  I remembered after posting the earlier question 
that this was the system that also became unbootable? after an Ubuntu 
version upgrade and the only solution was putting in an old disk as my 
new sda and just mounting the old partitions.  (? or maybe it booted but 
x11 wouldn't start.  I can't remember now.)

The current background is that sda was a clean 10.04 install and a clean 
10.10 upgrade later.  All of the kernel upgrades and removals were via 
apt-get (via the normal upgrade manager) and dpkg (to remove old 
kernels).  Absolutely nothing was unusual in that regards.

Right now I can get to a grub loader menu but it doesn't recognize my 
root FS.  Maybe that's fixable if there's a way to specify the kernel 
modules in addition to the kernel image itself.  (I've been using JFS 
instead of ext2/3/4).

But now?... bring on the alcohol.  Cold weather => work from home => 
install Cisco VPN software => one 64-bit windows system toes up.


On 02/01/2011 06:15 PM, David L. Anselmi wrote:
> Bear Giles wrote:
>> 1) The grub screen shows the 2.6.31-17 kernel and mem test but is
>> totally nonresponsive to the keyboard.  There is no 2.6.31-17 kernel
>> image still in the /boot partition.  (It had been there but was nuked.
>> See above.)
> grub 1 or 2?
>
>> 2) The /var/log/messages files shows that the grub loader is seeing the
>> actual kernel images.
>>
>> 3) The system is running a 2.6.31-17 kernel even though there's none
>> installed.
>> I can work backwards and realize that it partly works since nothing has
>> been changed on the /boot partition after deleting old kernel images.
> I don't think grub works that way, unless you force it to.
>
>> But I have no idea why there's a disconnect between what grub is showing
>> and what /var/log/messages is showing in terms of recognized kernel
>> images, or why grub is ignoring my keyboard entirely.
> Are you sure the config grub is using is the one in /boot?  Are you sure the grub that's installed
> is the one you think it is?  Sounds to me like some different partitions are involved.
>
> Dave
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