Kernel Panic 1.4.21

Swampy · 10-06-2003, 02:39 PM

I'm having a bit of trouble booting my newly compiled 1.4.21 Kernel.

I have followed the Verbose Debian Kernel installation guide on OSNEWS

(http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=2949)

and created a .deb package, which I installed on my system.

I created a boot floppy and updated lilo, following the prompts.

I then rebooted my machine and selected the new kernel.

I believe it started going wrong at this point:

kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k block-major-3, errno=2

VFS: Cannot open root device "305" or 03:05 please append a correct "root=" boot option

kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

What exactly is this trying to tell me?

I think I should append the new lilo section to display "root= something-or other" Does anyone have any ideas? I can gladly provide more info if it will help.

hw-tph · 10-06-2003, 03:11 PM

It is possible that your previous kernel used an initrd image - or that the one you have built uses initrd image.

In either case, you should have a look at your /etc/lilo.conf config file. If you don't recognize the term "initrd image" and you've configured and built the new kernel yourself you probably don't have it.
Search lilo.conf for a line that starts with "initrd=" and comment out the whole line (add a # as the first character on the line).

Rerun /sbin/lilo and reboot. Keep a rescue floppy (or the Debian installation CD, which can be used as a rescue CD if you can boot from the CD-ROM).

Note that if your old kernel used initrd it will need that line in /etc/lilo.conf.

hw

TigerOC · 10-06-2003, 03:22 PM

I hit the very same problem using the debian kernel packaging system with an ordinary source file. This was with 2.4.22. When I used the debian source package and compiled it the debian way it worked perfectly. There must be some tweaking done to the debian source. The only suggestion I can make is to compile and install the kernel the normal way.

Swampy · 10-06-2003, 03:28 PM

I checked lilo.conf and found no "initrd=" line, therefore I guess I should add it, as you sugested.

What does the initrd option do? Is there a standard option I need to pass for 2.4.x kernels?

hw-tph · 10-06-2003, 03:29 PM

What command line parameters to you pass to make-kpkg when you build your kernel package? I still think you might be building initrd kernels and not having it in lilo.conf (or the other way around).

hw

hw-tph · 10-06-2003, 03:32 PM

What it does? It adds a ramdisk which is used only during the boot process (if I recall correctly). Here's a snip from "man make-kpkg":

Quote:

--initrd
If make-kpkg is generating a kernel-image package, perform any
actions necessary for a kernel loaded using initrd. NOTE: this
requires a non-standard cramfs initrd patch to the kernel
sources, (unless the mkintrd configuration has been modified
not to use cramfs) or may result in a unbootable kernel. The
patch is generally present in the kernel sources shipped by
Debian, but is not present in pristine kernel sources. This
option may include extra dependencies, and modifications to
maintainer scripts. It has no effect when make-kpkg is not
making a kernel-image package. The same effect can be achieved
by setting the environment variable INITRD to any non empty
value. To avoid a warning at install time, please read kernel-
img.conf(5), and add a warn_initrd directive in that file. To
avoid the warning ar compile time, please set the environment
variable INITRD_OK.

hw

Swampy · 10-06-2003, 03:38 PM

The command I entered ( after make xconfig and make-kpkg clean) was:

make-kpkg --revision=786:MyKernel2.4.21 kernel-image

Swampy · 10-13-2003, 02:35 AM

Sorry, my bad.

Guess which moron compiled a kernel without any IDE support at all, forgetting that his Hard Drive's an IDE job? Yes, you've guessed it.

The newly recompiled kernel's running fine now. Thanks for your patience, guys.

hw-tph · 10-13-2003, 02:43 AM

LOL! That kind of thing happens to the best of us from time to time.

Glad you got it sorted.

hw

pe2338 · 10-14-2003, 01:50 AM

3 block First MFM, RLL and IDE hard disk/CD-ROM interface
0 = /dev/hda Master: whole disk (or CD-ROM)
64 = /dev/hdb Slave: whole disk (or CD-ROM)

For partitions, add to the whole disk device number:
0 = /dev/hd? Whole disk
1 = /dev/hd?1 First partition
2 = /dev/hd?2 Second partition
...
63 = /dev/hd?63 63rd partition

For Linux/i386, partitions 1-4 are the primary
partitions, and 5 and above are logical partitions.
Other versions of Linux use partitioning schemes
appropriate to their respective architectures.

Quote:

Guess which moron compiled a kernel without any IDE support at all, forgetting that his Hard Drive's an IDE job? Yes, you've guessed it.