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I'm running Linux Slackware on a headless system. From time to time,
the unit doesn't boot. We have noticed that we're getting some
spurious interrupts, although that may not have anything to do with our
problem.

Our lilo.conf file looks like this:
# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hdc
disk = /dev/hdc
bios=0x80
prompt
timeout = 5
# Normal VGA console
vga = normal
image = /vmlinuz_ktrn_2
root = /dev/hda1
label = Linux_2.6.13
read-only

My thought at this point is that the red prompt screen still comes up
even though we can't see it and maybe we're getting an interrupt that
causes the unit to freeze at the prompt screen. Is there an easy way
to disable the prompt screen?

Any help would be appreciated.

On 18 Apr 2006 09:45:38 -0700, trs61982@juno.com
<trs61982@juno.com> wrote:
> I'm running Linux Slackware on a headless system. From time to time,
> the unit doesn't boot. We have noticed that we're getting some
> spurious interrupts, although that may not have anything to do with our
> problem.
>
> Our lilo.conf file looks like this:
> # LILO configuration file
> # generated by 'liloconfig'
> #
> # Start LILO global section
> boot = /dev/hdc
> disk = /dev/hdc
> bios=0x80
> prompt
> timeout = 5
> # Normal VGA console
> vga = normal
> image = /vmlinuz_ktrn_2
> root = /dev/hda1
> label = Linux_2.6.13
> read-only
>
> My thought at this point is that the red prompt screen still comes up
> even though we can't see it and maybe we're getting an interrupt that
> causes the unit to freeze at the prompt screen. Is there an easy way
> to disable the prompt screen?
>
Remove "prompt" and set delay=0?

If another machine is available, set up lilo for a serial console and
use the second machine to log the output.


--
No hardware designer should be allowed to produce any piece of hardware
until three software guys have signed off for it.
-- Andy Tanenbaum

On 18 Apr 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.setup, in article
<1145378738.102781.96720@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups. com>, trs61982@juno.com wrote:

>I'm running Linux Slackware on a headless system.

-rw-rw-r-- 1 gferg ldp 287028 Mar 31 2003 Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO

We set all of our headless boxes to run a remote serial console. This gives
a second way to access the box if the network doesn't come up.

>From time to time, the unit doesn't boot. We have noticed that we're
>getting some spurious interrupts, although that may not have anything to do
>with our problem.

That often indicates a hardware problem - noise wiggling the wire around,
or a failed 'pullup' function somewhere. What do you see in the boot
messages (/var/log/messages). Is logging not even started? That's where a
serial console would come in handy - even if all you did was redirect the
output on the receiving device to a file.

>Our lilo.conf file looks like this:

It's been a while since I dealt with that.

>prompt
>timeout = 5

-rw-rw-r-- 1 gferg ldp 58787 Oct 21 09:45 LILO
-rw-rw-r-- 1 gferg ldp 8080 Apr 26 2001 Multiboot-with-LILO

those are mini-HOWTOs - and you also want to hit the man page.

>My thought at this point is that the red prompt screen still comes up
>even though we can't see it and maybe we're getting an interrupt that
>causes the unit to freeze at the prompt screen.

Two different things. If this is all of /etc/lilo.conf, and you are just
single booting, the 'prompt' and 'timeout' lines could be commented out
or deleted (I don't recommend this normally, as I may want to interrupt
the boot process to bring it up in single user mode - by that's your
decision). But this screen isn't colored unless you have something
set in your BIOS to do so. Are you referring to a splash screen?

Old guy