Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about PGI

$Progeny: faq.xml,v 1.12 2002/06/17 18:51:57 branden Exp $

1. General Questions
1.1. How is PGI pronounced?
1.2. How do I report bugs in PGI, or problems with my install using PGI?
2. Problems running the PGI installer
2.1. The installer starts to boot, but then stops, saying Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs. What happened?
2.2. I'm trying to run the PGI installer in graphical mode on a remote X server, but PGI errors out and refuses to connect to the X server. What happened?
2.3. My install seems to have started fine, but partway through the system just hangs. What happened?
3. Post-installation problems
3.1. After installing, my machine won't boot from the hard drive; it says Operating system not found. What's going on?
3.2. My system starts to boot, but then stops, saying Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs. What happened?

1. General Questions

These are actually two different questions.

Because PGI is an installer creation system as well as an installer, how PGI works for you is largely determined by the vendor of your PGI-based installation disc.

Your first contact should be your installer vendor. You can find this information at the top of the /var/log/installer.log file.

PGI creates four log files during the installation procedure; you will likely need to be able to give these files to your vendor's technical support representative so that they can diagnose your problem and provide you with a solution. The log files are:

If you do not have the installing system's network configured, the install will not complete, and you need to preserve the logfiles, simply use the pgilogs2disk, available in the installer environment.

pgilogs2disk will copy these log files into a DOS-formatted floppy. From there, the files can be accessed from any computer with the floppy drive, using any operating system that understands the DOS disk format.

Finally, if you have discovered a bug in PGI itself, and (if applicable) confirmed this fact with your installer vendor, you may report the problem to the Debian Bug Tracking System. Ony highly-recommended utility for automating Debian bug reporting procedures is reportbug.

2. Problems running the PGI installer

The initial RAM disk used by the installer for a root filesystem is a Second Extended filesystem ("ext2"); support for this filesystem type must be built into the kernel used by PGI. See the kernel configuration chapter of the PGI vendor's manual for more information.

This problem is usually encountered by people testing PGI installers that they just created; if this happens with a PGI disc you received from someone else, either something highly unusual is afoot, or the installer vendor made an error when producing the PGI ISO image.

There are a few possibilities.

3. Post-installation problems