[RULE] Slinky and pivot_root problems

[Brett L. Moore]

Hi,

I have a Compaq Presario CDS 924 (486 with 16MB of ram) and am trying to
install RH 7.3 (it has been running RH 7.0 for a couple of years).
Initially, I tried miniconda v0.7.4 (boot.img with RH 7.3 ISOs on CD) - this
version dies just after calling /sbin/loader.  Earlier versions of miniconda
get further along, but ultimately tell me that I do not have enough RAM to
install RH.  I have tried passing options in (i.e. "linux mem=16M", but
always the same message.

I then tried slinky and appeared to have more success.  With slinky, I
reformatted the drives and setup partitions (/, /boot, and /swap) - then the
rpms installed from CD with no apparent problems.  Ultimately, the install
tells me everything was fine and asks to make a boot disk.  I made a boot
disk, then rebooted the machine.

When it reboots, the boot process proceeds normally through hardware
identification but dies a horrible death shortly after .  I see lots of
"ext3 failures" and pivot_root messages, then "kernel panic: no init found".
My uneducated guess is that /dev/hda1 (/boot) is not mounting.  I am using
lilo, but the same errors are encountered if I use my boot disk.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Brett