Ive been having problems with my IPW3945 in Slackware 12, so I needed to rebuild the kernel, 2.6.21.5, to include mac80211, so I tried and I get a kernel panic about mounting root File system. So I used initrd and still panic'd. So then I tried building the newest 2.6.23.14 kernel, same thing happend.
I then had sshd started and had a professional from the slackware help page in new york SSH in and rebuild the new kernel, and got the same kernel panic, and then he just tried to rebuild the current running kernel, and it did the same thing, and I KNOW he and myself included ext3 in the kernel and not a module.
So I called another professional out of the phone book and had him ssh in and try it, same thing.
Anyone know why this is happening to me with slackware 12??
I cant use the newer drivers for my IPW3945 card without mac80211, so I have to rebuild..

only time i had this issue was when i used the wrong conf file and ext2/3 was built as a module and not built in, changed that and all was fine with the world , i would say get the latest kernel from slackware-current dir and see if it still does it with that

"kernel panic about mounting root File system"

That could be many things.

Check your LILO/GRUB config. Is it passing along the initrd path correctly? Post your LILO.conf etc. if you can. If it's LILO, make sure you are re-running LILO each time to update the MBR.

Check your initrd - actually extract it and have a look at it to see what it is doing. You can build an initrd that will only look in one partition for one particular filesystem, especially if you follow the initrd README in /boot too closely. Better to build an initrd with just the module options and use LILO to specify which partition to mount as root etc. Post your mkinitrd options if you can.

Check your root filesystem isn't corrupted.

Check that your /boot partition is readable in your BIOS (only an issue in very old computers, so it's probably not that).

It's not accessing your root partition for some reason. That's either wrong filesystem, looking in the wrong place (i.e. wrong partition/drive for root) or something missing.

The fact that it happens in so many different kernel versions tells me that it's NOT the kernel. It's going to be a stupid-user-moment where you haven't given it the right options in LILO, GRUB, .config or mkinitrd or it's going to be something more fundamental, like kernel patches that you are applying etc.

Personally, I only ever have filesystems (except for ext2, the lowest common denominator) as modules and then have varying initrd's if it's ever necessary to change the root filesystem type (rarely if not never). You don't gain anything by building it into the kernel.

Oh, and if a "professional" couldn't resolve this for you, I suggest never using them ever again. If you have a linux kernel running, with intact original source, there's not much to check to get it working again.

It's not just a matter of including the filesystem - you have to ensure you also have support for the disk controller chip included as well.

If it's SATA drive, don't include both new libata and old drivers.

This MIGHT have been it, I cannot recall myself.
The 4 times I tried to rebuild the kernel and compile a new one, I know for a fact I included ext3 in the kernel, so I shouldnt of even had to use initrd but I did that anyways to check, they also did that however when the first company couldnt do it, I called another, same problems, they did it again and said this time I know for a fact that I did it right, so itmight be the sata drivers.

If you have SATA drives, that means you should have /dev/sd* device types anyway, so I suggest always using the libata based (ie the new) drivers and completely disable the old ones. I've been running them for several kernel versions now (almost as soon as they were available) and they work quite right now.

Okay, ill def. try that next time. I do have sda so I know its sata drive and dvd burner, I pulled it out of my laptop to see if it was

I had a similar problem earlier this year on one of my notebooks with sata. Here are my notes:

After the first kernel recompile and reboot, there was a kernel panic where the kernel couldn't find the root partition. Here are some facts:

* The stock kernel recognized the SATA hard drive as /dev/sda, but the new kernel recognized the hard drive as /dev/hda.
* In /etc/lilo.conf, root=/dev/sda2. This creates an obvious problem if the hard drive isn't /dev/sda.
* The new kernel had standard IDE/ATA support compiled in, but no SATA.
* The page at http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2006/...s-cddvd-drive/ describes a similar problem and fix for Fedora.
* I took the spirit of this suggestion and removed ATA support (for disk and cdrom) and added it for SATA. This particular computer uses an Intel 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 family) SATA IDE controller, so I used the ata_piix kernel option.
* In other words, instead of /dev/hda and /dev/hdc, I now have /dev/sda and /dev/sr0.

They are kind of mickey-mouse, but maybe helpful.

In new kernels all disks can be sdx and cdroms - srx. It depends on what drivers you use, new ones, where all ide drivers are moved to new libata interface (you'll get only sdx and srx), or old interface (hdx - IDE, sdx - SATA on SCSI emulation).

Okay so I finally got the rebuild working, and I installed the new iwifi drivers and mac80211.
Then I ran the load script and it showed wlan0, however I run ifconfig wlan0 up and i get no such file or directory.
Also, it doesnt scan with iwlist scan.
When I do iwconfig, it shows IEEE 80211a, and its the Intel Pro Wireless ABG 3945, so I dont know if it will change automatically or what, but ive seen peoples iwconfig, and it showed bg.
I cant do ifconfig wlan0 up, so I cant get it to connect to anything.

Jinx161, 'finally got the rebuild working' I didn't see how please, did what jelaiwang say help, what did you do to 'finally got the rebuild working'?

thanks

Jinx161,

I have the same Intel 3945 wireless adapter in my notebook and used the iwlwifi and mac80211 patches from http://intellinuxwireless.org/.

Here are the versions I am using successfully right now to connect to an 802.11b only AP:

iwlwifi 1.2.23
mac80211 10.0.3
iwl3945 ucode 2.14.1.15

If you post the exact steps and error messages you are getting, I can probably help because I spent a good part of Dec troubleshooting this. As it turned out in my case, the problem was buggy firmware in my 802.11b AP. But as a nice side effect, I learned a lot about these patches and setting up wireless.

Okay so ive come to the conclusion that im getting this msg in dmesg: cannot read microcode reason -2, because i had to chmod -x rc.udev, otherwise I get a black screen and my system freezes, So I havnt been able to do anything without it. Soon as I start rc.udev, same thing.
##slackware at irc.freenode, has been unable to help as well, so im trying slackware-current iso, downloading it now. Ill see what I can get from there