Compile your root filesystem support in the kernel, not as a module. Can be a lot of others thing.
I think you'd better open a new thread in the Arch forum.

──────────────────┤ Configuring linux-image-2.6.14.6-grsec-bastion ├───────────────────┐
│ │
│ You are installing a kernel with an initrd image │
│ │
│ You are attempting to install an initrd kernel image (version │
│ 2.6.14.6-grsec-bastion) on a machine currently running kernel version 2.4.27-2-386. │
│ │
│ I have been unable to find a suitable tool for generating initrd images (I looked at │
│ the list "mkinitramfs-kpkg mkinitrd.yaird") This will break the installation, unless │
│ such tools are also being installed right now in the same run. (This means, one from │
│ the following list yaird (>= 0.0.11-8) | initramfs-tools (>= 0.53) | │
│ linux-initramfs-tool,) │




WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF



Building Dependency Tree... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
initramfs-tools: Depends: klibc-utils (>= 1.1.16-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: busybox (>= 1:1.01-3) but it is not going to be installed or
busybox-cvs-static (>= 20040623-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: module-init-tools but it is not going to be installed
Depends: udev (>= 0.076-5) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

when i use
apt-get -f install

then


depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.14.6-grsec-bastion/kernel/net/irda/ircomm/ircomm-tty.ko
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.14.6-grsec-bastion/kernel/net/irda/irnet/irnet.ko
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.14.6-grsec-bastion/kernel/net/sctp/sctp.ko
Finding valid ramdisk creators.
Failed to find suitable ramdisk generation tool for kernel version
2.6.14.6-grsec-bastion on running kernel 2.4.27-2-386 in mkinitramfs-kpkg mkinitrd.yaird
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.14.6-grsec-bastion (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 9
Errors were encountered while processing:
linux-image-2.6.14.6-grsec-bastion
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Hello.

Not sure, if my contribution is still desired, but I had similar problem with SuSE 10.0 OSS on the ThinkPad 600x. The reason was ACPI - I had an IRQ-conflict.

Try to switch off the ACPI in the kernel.

Regards,
A.

I have a similar problem. I have 2.4.27-2-386 and I boot with that. I installed 2.6.16-2-686 too using aptitude but I can't boot with that. The boot process stops with message "waiting for root file system"
What is wrong?

my menu.lst

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.16-2-686-smp
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.16-2-686-smp root=/dev/hde3 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.16-2-686-smp
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.16-2-686-smp (recovery mode)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.16-2-686-smp root=/dev/hde3 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.16-2-686-smp
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.16-2-686
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.16-2-686 root=/dev/hde3 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.16-2-686
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.16-2-686 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.16-2-686 root=/dev/hde3 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.16-2-686
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.27-2-386
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27-2-386 root=/dev/hde3 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-2-386
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.27-2-386 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27-2-386 root=/dev/hde3 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-2-386
savedefault
boot


my fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hde3 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hde6 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hde1 /media/win/hde1 ntfs ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hde5 /media/win/hde5 ntfs ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom1 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda /media/usb0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
~
~
HELP ME PLEASE

Did udev get upgraded?

What if the sources (for example for do a step in the tar of vmware-player) arent there????


My best solution because I don't know how to handle the dependencies in command line was to start synaptic search the kernel-image.x.x.x-x-x that I have installed, right click and see the recommended packages and it have downloaded kernel-source.x.x.x without the extra -x-x ... By the way... what mean that extra -1-k7?????



By the way, if I have the kernel-source installed, I need anyway the kernel-headers????

I think I will follow these instructions and see what happens for me on PPC.

The last time I tried compiling a new kernel (linux-2.6.17.tar.bz2 from kernel.org) I was getting a bunch of errors in drivers such as for the Intel E1000 Gigabit controller and vmlinux.coff package build errors.

Couldn't hurt to try.

(Errors still there. The former is in e1000_xmit_frame() : /net/drivers/e1000/e1000_main.c, and the latter fails on a cp operation.

I'm confused now.)

(EDIT 2: Okay, so I got past those, and made vmlinux.coff appear with the 'touch' command - strange that I didn't remember it seeing as I used it all the time for work on PC. I set HAVE_COFF_IMAGE to NO in debian/rules but apparently that last made the kernel build process use it anyway. I installed the kernel_image .deb and then did a depmod.

Not good.

Looked around a while, saw that this symbol belongs to CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE, which is already built in to the kernel. So it shouldn't do much damage to proceed, right? Wrong.

Yaboot halted at "loading ramdisk" and I had to get a live CD to fix it up. This entailed removing all of the new kernel.

What did I do wrong?)

(EDIT 3: Now net/ixgb/ixgb_main is halting with the same errors as e1000. I think this would soon be better off in its own thread.)

sorry i'm new here but is this compile new for i386?

Thank you kindly. This information is very usefull for me. Great site! Thanks again!

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

http://www.neolink.ro

Althought I don't have the same problem now,but I unstand how these problem fazed me in the beginning of using Debian!!

Thank you for your article!!

Let the newbie become a good debianer is a so good thing!!

the guide was very helpful!

Thanks bud.

When I install the kernel modules using make module install, will I blow away the 2.4 modules? If so, is there a way to have modules for both kernels installed?

I'm in the middle of upgrading our kernel at work from 2.4 to 2.6. We're using Debian sarge. I'm compiling the kernel from source. I disabled my os when I made this upgrade at home on my slackware box, and I'm trying to avoid the same trouble here, as its a production server :P

When I upgraded my kernel at home, my first attempt failed, but I was unable to rollback because (apparently) the 2.4 modules had been blown away (I'm not entirely sure this is what happened, but my os was fried at that point so I had to start over)

Thanks for any help.

I would think that you could install both types of kernels on the same system, but I don't know why trying to upgrade broke your old kernel. If you are worried, I would suggest trying to upgrade to the 2.6 kernel using a generic one available in the Debian repositories. Those kernels usually upgrade smoothly. Once you have a 2.6 kernel installed, you can then custom compile your own.

Of course you can have two or more kernels and boot in kernel of your choise but you need to do it right.About above message " waiting root partition to boot" I had that problem too until I realized that I forgot to copy config file from /boot/ to
/usr/src/linux-source-x.x.x/.config before make menuconfig command.

Its easy to make new kernel under Etch.After you download and unpack wanted kernel source and cd in that directory you need to copy /boot/config file to /path/to/source/.config , do make menuconfig and then

make-kpkg --append-to-version=.yourrevision --initrd kernel_image which will make kernel_image in parent directory.Then after cd .. do
dpkg -i linux-image-version and isntall it and then
grub install /dev/sda or your device
update-grub
and system will do everything initrd , sysconfig ,edit your grub file just everything .So you need to reboot and chose kernel you want and thats it !

make-kpkg will make new modules directory /lib/modules/newkernel/ so it will not be mixed up with existing /lib/modules/oldkernel/

You need to have gcc kernel-package kernel-source-2.6.x.x libc6-dev
tk8.3 libncurses5-dev fakeroot to do this.