This is my 5th or 6th time recompiling my kernel tonight. I think I've finally got everything in there that I need, but now this.

Why is it looking at the UDF-fs? I have the reiserfs (my partition type) in the kernel.

I'm stumped really....

crap sorry wrong forum...move to whatever is right (software?)

ok I got rid of the UDF-fs problem by making i a module instead of building it in, but after ramdisk is found, the kernel panics and still isn't able to mount the root fs on hda1.

This is Mandrake 10.0 Official by the way.

You can still boot up using your old kernel - can you?

Check everything you did when configuring your new kernel! - and reverse it, until you got your primary problem solved.

How did you compile and install your kernel - probably it is still using the initrd made for the previous one - the one you are running now.

If you just compiled the kernel and installed it - you have a kernel that may be able to boot via initrd - but this has to be set up separately.
Just compiling in support for the use of initrd will not do...
I'm not sure, how this is done but I could try to help...if this seems to be the cause of your trouble.
The kernel could be booted without an initrd.

Make sure you compiled in the support for reiserfs - not as a module but into the kernel.

How do you boot your system - with a boot loader like lilo or grub? I could help with lilo but not with grub.

Did you tell your boot-loader about the new kernel? and updated the configuration?

Hey Thanks so much for responding. I've been following the Kernel Compile Howto in this forum. I was able to boot into it, but I commented out using the initrd image in my lilo.conf, and then ended up getting the lilo 99 99 99 etc. thing. I couldn't boot anything then (even after vi'ing lilo.conf and *trying* to run /mnt/sbin/lilo from Mandrake rescue, got a lib/module error and couldn't compile the one I needed) so I reinstalled and am using the more stable 2.4 version with MDK10.

Of course I removed all the system links, created the new initrd.img -> initrd-2.6.7.img, new System.map -> System.map-2.6.7, new all that stuff. Did all the make stuff from the howto. Did everything right in the howto (editing lilo too, etc).

So basically I know it wasn't a problem of not following directions. Aparently I have enabled/not enabled something in my .config when using gconfig, and I need to find out what it was. I've compiled reiserfs support in, even tho I don't need it cause I've got the initrd.img. I tried leaving it as a module to avoid double loading of it.

I've tried every single little thing I can think of to make it work, but I just don't know. Does anyone know what I need to fix to stop getting this?

btw is there something I can use to check if my kernel will work at all (like a config check program or something) so that it can point me in the right direction of what to do to fix it? (ie it could tell my a few possibilities of why my root fs won't mount)

ok thanks I got it to work. I had remade make xconfig instead of gconfig and I went with the recommended stuff a bit more (reiser fs extra stuff removed?) And I got my kernel up and running. I think xconfig has some "if you add this then take off this" stuff that I remember gconfig said it was still working on implementing. Maybe that was part of my problem.

The only problem now is that I can select which services I want to start on boot, but even the ones I don't want started end up starting. What can I do to change this?

Also, is there a way to see the bootup list and messages (not the kernel one but all the other stuff)? I'm getting some failed and some messages but its too fast for me to read.

And one last thing: it takes forever for my eth0 to start. What can I do to speed it up?


Thanks for helping.

Good - you got it solved!

since I already wrote this - I will post it anyway...(Im writing while being offline - so I missed out on you last post)


As far as I know - there is no such thing to check before you install ...

What you could do:
in the top level of your source-tree there is a file .config and also .config.old
These are: the new configuration you just created and that will be used to compile the kernel
and the old configuration from when you run and saved the config for the kernel-source...
So - since you already tried a couple of times by now - there is no file there which you could use to go back to a configuration which worked - but this hint could save you trouble in the future; once you have a configuration that works - keep this file and it will be easy to go back...

What I was trying to say: even if your current configuration (your boot loader) is set up to use an initrd, you could nonetheless boot your kernel without this - provided that the support for your root-filesystem is compiled in. You will have to comment out the line referring to the initrd and might need to change other things - I dont know, because I do not know your setup.

Questions:

Is your root-filesystem on /dev/hda1 ? or is it just a separate /boot partition
the output of "fdisk /dev/hda -l" would make it more clear

You did install you new kernel - but did you tell your boot-loader about it (e.g. "lilo -v" after editing your configuration)?

what you are trying to accomplish can be done - but this has nothing to do with the kernel itself.
What gets started and what does not is configured in yuor systems startup-scripts!

I dont know about how Mandrake does this: its somewhere in /etc/rc.d or /ets/init.d ...

The messages you are looking for: you will find them in one of these files:
/var/log/kern.log /var/log/sys.log /var/log/ and by issuing "dmesg" - if this is too much too fast: "dmesg | less"

as for eth0: you will have to provide more info about how it is set up

Thanks for the help on the messages, I'll try that when I get home in a bit.

As for eth0, its my onboard nForce 2 LAN. It uses the forcedeth driver, and had to be reverse engineered from the kernel (thats pretty cool...). Thats pretty much all I know about it. My other ethernet card, eth1, uses NatSemi drivers and doesn't seem to take as long to initialize. I'm not sure, but I'll have to time it. Its a pity I have to wait so long for it to start.

Is there a way I can tell the kernel to keep loading and even let me log in while it is still activating it? That is what Windows XP does....I have to wait a bit for it to bring it up on boot, but it is only noticeable for several seconds because I think it starts it early on in the boot process and lets it run.

About the startup scripts, I guess the program that edits them ("Configure Your Computer" in Mandrake 10) could be pointing to an older init/rc.d file. I'll look around some. I'm not sure how to change it manually, however.

Thanks again for helping.

Hey I got the same message on a couple of different gentoo installs. Upgrading from 2.6.3-r2 to 2.6.7, I compiled it, installed it, booted off it, and it panics with the UDF error. It's bizarre. I'm trying to recompile it without UDF to see if that fixes it. I fixed it on another install that used genkernel but I'm still mucking around trying to work out why it tries to find a UDF partition.
Hopefully no UDF will fix it, but it's not the greatest workaround...