[Newark] mp-bios.bug

[Steve Caddy]

Robert Roworth wrote:

> Can anyone help,I'm trying to edit the boot on Linux Mint to stop apic from
> running at Boot. This is my first attempt at the command line, and any help
> would be greatly appreciated.

Hmmm... this isn't so much a command line thing, as a config option in grub. I
seem to remember having to add "noapic" (without the quotes) to the boot
options for a file server I built a couple of months ago... you need to press
E as soon the grub loader appears to edit the boot options, and add it to the
end of the line with all the other boot options from what I remember (with a
comma, naturally, to separate it from the other boot options).

You could do it from the command line... I'm not sure if nano is included with
Mint (it certainly is in Ubuntu). Nano is really quite easy to use, as all the
commands are ctrl+<key>, for example ctrl+O to save (write Out), and ctrl+X to
exit. Somewhat easier than vi at any rate!

I believe you can edit the grub config by typing:

sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

Somewhere near the bottom will be all the boot options... the one on the
troublesome filesever that looks like this:

title		Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-server
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-server
root=UUID=ffffffff-ffff-ffff-ffff-ffffffffffff ro quiet splash noapic nolapic
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-server

(the 3rd line will probably get wrapped by my email client, and the UUID will
be a load of hex digits - I've changed them here for paranoia). You can see
that I've got the noapic option in there, and also nolapic, which I needed to
add as well, but I can't exactly remember why - it was certainly an iffy BIOS
thing. Anyway, add the options to your kernel line (watching out for line
wrap, which nano might inflict on you), and then ctrl+O to save once you're
happy, and ctrl+X to quit, and then reboot.

Hope that helps.

Steve

-- 
Steven M Caddy, MEng ------------------------------------------------------
Email: steve.m.caddy at ntlworld.com