"Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu> writes:
> In message <8764tkq5op.fsf@snark.piermont.com>, "Perry E. Metzger" writes:
>>
>>"Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu> writes:
>>>>Ja'far Railton <ibn.richard@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> I am trying to get a Thinkpad R30 going running 2.0_STABLE from
>>>>> known-good iso CD. I have a problem on boot when it gets to "agp0 at
>>>>> pchb0" - it hangs. I googled to find that back in 2002-3 this was a
>>>>> problem. One solution back then was to boot from floppy because floppy
>>>>> kernel doesn't have AGP. Does anyone have any other advice?
>>>>
>>>>Just build a custom kernel without agp and boot it?
>>>
>>> Is it possible to boot alternate kernels?
>>
>>Yes, though you do need a machine to compile the alternate kernel
>>on. Luckily, you can do that on a very wide variety of operating
>>systems these days. You do have to learn how to build alternative
>>install kernels/images, though.
>
> As I noted, there are six install kernels on the CD.  Can one of them 
> be booted?

On the current (old style) install CDs, not directly (you need to put
the kernel onto a floppy or disk-on-key or something) because the El
Torrito boot mechanism uses a disk image on the CD as the boot
medium. (It is not particularly hard to copy one of the kernels into
an FFS on a disk-on-key or what have you, but it isn't just a matter
of typing the name at the prompt.)

However, with the new bootstrap code, we should be able to provide
people with the ability to boot any one of several kernels by entering
in its name at a prompt.

Perry