Stuck in bootstrapping hell - how do I troubleshoot?

[Alex Zbyslaw]

Chris Zumbrunn wrote:

> Yes, I'm just waiting until someone has to go by there anyway in the 
> next days. No big deal, but it's not urgent enough to justify the trip 
> just for that. In the meantime, it is annoying to know that ultimately 
> I just have this problem because I'm doing something wrong!  ...where 
> am I screwing up the setup?  :-)

The only other thing to occur to me was that the machine might actually 
be booting, but getting stuck somewhere maybe probing devices.  I'm no 
expert on the bootup procedure, but I would doubt that /var/log/messages 
was being updated during device probes.  The stuff is probably buffered 
somewhere and then written.  One final thing I might try in your 
position is to copy a GENERIC kernel to the disk and see what happens 
when you reboot.  Or even try a very pared down kernel with nothing but 
disks, ethernet card and whatever else is mandatory.  I guess also 
compare the stuff in /boot with the machine that works.

--Alex