[NMLUG] kernel2.6 help (was: grub help)

[aaron at boim.com (Aaron NMLUG)]

on grub settings...

> root (hd0,3)
> kernel (hd0,1)/bzImage-2.6.8_20041025 root=/dev/hda4

> ...Here's my relevant fstab setting so you can add it up:
>
> /dev/hda4           /               reiserfs        noatime         0 0
> /dev/hda2           /boot           ext2            noauto,noatime  1 1

This does seem a little different from what I often see.
Looks like you set your grub-root to the REAL root,
then defined your kernel directly from the boot partition.
It might be worth a try.

However...  I not kind-of doubt that grub was my real issue.
It looks like the kernel I had been building is wanky.
Unfortunately, the kerne; "make install" I ran made the
whole system unbootable, so I re-installed and
tried to set up grub by hand this time.

When I boot, I get something like:  (this is a paraphrase... no
cut-and-paste on dead console!)
RAMDISK initialized....
ide: assuming 33 MHz system bus for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
...
VFS: cannot open root device "hda2" or unknown block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
...
Kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown block(0,)

------------------

This is odd, since the new kernel mirrors the stock one
pretty closely.  Grub entries are:

...
title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-1-386
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.8-1-386 root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.8-1-386
savedefault
boot
...
title           SMP2.6.8 kernel with 4GB Memory
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /SMP2.6.8HM root=/dev/hda2 ro
#initrd         /initrd.img-2.6.8-1-386
boot

** Messages on stock kernel are like...
...
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
devfs: 2004-01-31 Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
devfs: boot_options: 0x0
...
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 8192K size 1024 blocksize
...
RAMDISK: cramfs filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 4316 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (cramfs filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 204k freed
...
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
SvrWks OSB4: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:0f.1
SvrWks OSB4: chipset revision 0
SvrWks OSB4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
hda: WDC WD1200JB-00EVA0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: DVD+R/RWDX082D, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
Using anticipatory io scheduler
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: max request size: 1024KiB
hda: 234441648 sectors (120034 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63, (U)DMA
 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 p3 p4 < p5 p6 p7 p8 >
...
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Adding 939760k swap on /dev/hda8.  Priority:-1 extents:1
EXT3 FS on hda2, internal journal

***********************

So it looks like the root filesystem CAN work, I'm just
not making it through the boot sequence.

Is there something else I need to do to the kernel to get
it to boot without the initrd image?
or...  how to I make an appropriate initrd image and use it?
Looks like perhaps the devfs doesn't get initialized,
so there is no "/dev/hda2" to mount for my kernel.
-- 
Aaron Birenboim        | I have an inferiority complex
Albuquerque, NM        |   ... but its not a very
aaron_at_birenboim.com |       good one.
>http://aaron.boim.com |