Solution for kernel panic in Ubuntu 9.10

Ever since i started using linux (Ubuntu 6.06), I've always wanted to explore its features. As a tech-geek, it is imperative for anyone to try out new things and I was no exception. Back then, one had to manually mount windows partitions by modifying the 'fstab' file. I wouldn't say that it was an easy task, but I was willing to take such risks because I had a spare 40GB drive on my desktop. Any experiment would be done only on the 40 GB drive and this gave me a free hand to wipe out the HD if something went wrong.

I've always tried to promote UBUNTU, but to my surprise a majority of people are reluctant to even try it out. There is nothing wrong in accepting the fact that LINUX is superior to other Operating systems in certain aspects. Yes, most of the applications that one requires are created keeping windows in mind. But there are equivalents on the penguin side as well. It certainly takes time to get acquainted to the equivalent.

I am not asking them to switch to linux completely. One can easily dual boot a windows OS and linux. Installing ubuntu has come to a point where one can install it as a program in windows using wubi. If you don't like it, just uninstall it from the add/remove programs in windows.

One of my colleagues also wanted to add tables the way I did them by converting them to their Latex equivalent. I urged him to use UBUNTU and he didn't want to make the switch. I tried installing the macro mentioned in my previous post. It didn't work out because he uses office 2007. So I installed UBUNTU using wubi and now he uses UBUNTU when he needs to convert tables.

When he was on vacation this winter, I updated his system and on the first restart it wasn't allowing me to boot into UBUNTU. It gave me the following error message.

Kernel-panic - not syncing : VFS : Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,6)

As usual, I googled for this kind of error message and got to know that it was because of some update. I was reluctant to re-install the OS all over again and was hell bent on finding a solution.

As a workaround, I had to replace the wubildr file located on C drive with this one. It worked.

If any of y'all are facing this issue, just replace the 'wubildr' file given in the link mentioned above. Note that this workaround is only for wubi users who have installed ubuntu 9.10.

As far as I know, I've been able to sort out most of the issues I've faced by googling. There is so much of help available out there and we can safely rely on the internet for help.

I would like to end by urging people to try UBUNTU (or any other linux distro). There is so much to learn on computers apart from WINDOWS.

I plan to upgrade to SNOW LEOPARD very soon and would like to write on the upgrade. I'll have to format my HD and re-install UBUNTU and WINDOWS. Although, this time i would only double boot and would run WINDOWS as a VM.

Can't wait to get a copy of SNOW LEOPARD.