Re: tlug: Kernel rebuild problem

[Hernando TANAKA <ktanaka@example.com>]

Neil Booth wrote:
> I have no idea what the "initrd" line is for the original kernel,
> so I omitted it for the new kernel. Do I need it?

I think so, although I need more information to be sure.

The problem might be that your root disk is on a SCSI disk
(root=/dev/sda1), and the kernel is configured to support SCSI
as a module.  When the kernel comes up, it couldn't recognize the
SCSI adapter, so it fails mounting the root file system.

Try to put the same initrd line in the lilo.conf for the
new kernel.  It might work, provided that you configured the
kernel to support ramdisk.

Initrd stands for Initial Ramdisk.  If specified, the kernel
uses it as the root file system at boot time, on the memory
(ramdisk), and executes the /linuxrc script on that ramdisk.
Usually, you insmod the appropriate scsi module there.

The initrd file is an gzipped ext2fs, so if your kernel supports
loop file system, you can see the contents by;

  1. Ungzip the content by
	# gzip -dc <initrd.img >/tmp/initrd.fs

  2. Mount the file by
	# mount -o loop /tmp/initrd.fs /mnt/loop

To create a new initrd image, use mkinitrd command.

To understand more about ramdisk, Bootdisk-HOWTO might be
a good starting point (although the contents on RH4.2 are
a little bit obsolete).


--- Kenny TANAKA
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