[TriLUG] kernel panic (and other stuff)

[Stephen Roller]

On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 09:31 -0400, m36344748-1 at pop.1and1.com wrote:
> To try and remedy the problem, I rebooted into Linux and got a kernel panic
> almost immediately on boot-up.  The panic message was something to the
> effect of "Kernel panic -not syncing: IO-APIC + timer doesn't work!"  It
> suggested that I reboot with a apic-debug parameter, but I am not very
> familiar with Linux and I am not sure how to tell GRUB to do that.  In
> addition, I am not at the PC now and I cannot try that.  Anyone know what
> might be causing this?

I can't say I know what's causing it, but I have had similar issues on
my Macbook.  The only solution I've found is to append "irqpoll
acpi=force noapic" onto the end of my boot options.

This is fairly simple to do one-time only for GRUB.  When you're booting
up, it should say "Press escape to select...", and then you should.
Whatever the default option is, make sure it is selected and hit the 'e'
key on your keyboard.  Then select the line that begins with "kernel".
Hit 'e' on that line, and you'll be able to edit it.  Append the options
above onto the end of the line, and then hit enter.  The line should be
changed.  Then hit 'b' to boot the system.  Hopefully, it will boot.

Once you've booted, you'll need to edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file
and add the same changes to make it permanent.

Good luck.