Greetings all Linux wizards. I admit up-front that I am a newbie, but from what I've seen, I love Linux. Unfortunately, I probably don't have the best machine for it (Laptop - Compaq Armada 7400, P2, 128m Ram, ~6gb HD). I installed RH9 and then did all of the necessary upgrades through FreshRPMs. Recently I tried to recompile my kernel and with the help of a friend with more Linux knowledge and experience than I, it was successful. The subsequent installation of the new kernel package was not, I gave it over 3 hrs after the screen showed 100% but did not return control to me. I eventually killed the process and since then I can not boot. Kernel panic!

I've searched through here and I didn't find anyone with a problem quite like this, and since I'm inept for now, I did not act on any solution yet.

Here are the last 10 lines. If more are needed, I'll post them.
-----------------------------------------
ERROR: /bin/ismod exited abnormally!
Mounting /proc filesystem
Creating block devices
Creating boot device
Mounting root filesystem
mount: error 19 mounting ext3
pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot, sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
umount /initrd/proc failed: 2
freeing unused kernel memory: 132k freed
Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.
-----------------------------------------

Thanks to all who read this and don't know what to do. Mega-thanks to those who know and help.

St. Martin

It looks like a problem not with kernel (and modules) compilation but with the booting process. I don't know if you use Lilo or Grub but anyway, for testing remove the lines concerning initrd from config file (I assume that you did not rebuilt it) and try again.

Forgive me for not replying earlier. I've been out for over a week have not been able to view / reply. I'll give this a try and let you know.
St. Martin

I am using Grub and as suggested I removed the line that read:
------------
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-18-9.img
------------

The same error messages as listed above. Prior to that I have 14 messages (more certainly scrolled off the screen) that reat:
------------
/lib/ext3.o: unresolved symbol ....
------------

Thanks again to all who can and do help. Someday I hope to be a resource in kind, but for now I'm still a newbie.

St. Martin

Hi St Martin

As I understand it each Kernel needs the corresponding INITRD.IMG file - so the Red Hat 9 kernel which is vmlinuz-2.4.20.8 will need the corresponding initrd.img file which is initrd-2.4.20-8.img. So for whichever Kernel you are now using make sure youve got a complementary Initrd.img file - also if you are using Grub - make sure all the entries correspond to the specific kernel and initrd.img file ytou are using - they should match exactly.

Okay, here is the latest - at the Grub boot window I edited the boot option (I only have one boot option) and removed the initrd line then selected the highlighted the root line and hit 'b' for boot. I get a new set of messages, but not joy.

Here are the last few lines where things start to go wrong:
---------------------
md: ... autorun DONE.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache has table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 8192 bind 16384)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0
VFS: Cannot open root device "LABEL=/" or 00:00
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 00:00
-----------------------

To Skyline's point (Thanks for the reply) - My kernel and initrd do match. I'm on 2.4.20-18.9.

I apologize for my absence of knowledge. As always, I appreciate your time.
-St. Martin

Hey dudes whats up - - same happened to me last night after compiling 2.4.21 (stable). Runs fine booting the 'older' kern: 2.4.20-18.

Using Grub. SCSI hdd's. Nothin special. SAME indications as St. Martin's message log.

Round of beers to who can solve this one.

Well I figured out what I was doing.

I never really got a complete compile. Rather, I had some issues trying to 'build scsi firmware into the kernel' as one of my compile options.

This was a mistake.

Once I removed those options, I got a clean compile and then booted the new kernel very nicely.

Guess my only question for St.M is are you getting a complete compile, with no errors after doing a make bzImage ?

Yes, I had a complete compile, however on my little underpowered machine it took a long time. Upon completion everything looked good, ie. no error messages, etc.

I'm happy for you. I'm thinking that if the local Linux Wizards are puzzled on this one I may re-install and not compile a new kernel. It is a play machine with little to lose, so I'm playing. Having said that, I'd rather try to fix this install before trashing it. I'll wait until the weekend before doing anything drastic.

Thanks again.
St. M

You guys are making the modules post the bzImage with

make modules
make modules_install

AND

you HAVE to make a new initrd with

mkinitrd...

That's cool. Just for giggles - St.M, how did you go about the compilation process? I found this gave me some 'booting issues' such as your situation. I found the README inside the kernel source wasn't as thorough as I'd like, granted I think it makes a lot of assumptions about the users working knowledge.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a total:

Really, compiling a new kernel for me is like a major challenge only because I don't do it that much.

Reading elsewhere, I used the following process:

1. Unzip the 2.4.x file into /usr/local/src/2.4.x (I read that it's not a good idea to do it in /usr/src, why I don't know.)
2. make mrproper
3. make xconfig
(if you want to run the gui vs. text config)
4. make clean
(I think this is where you go in the Makefile and change the version at the top)
5. make dep
6. make bzImage
7. make modules
8. make modules_install
9. make install

I'm sure somebody's just laughing their A## off, hey remember I"m a but any comments welcome.

Simply running this process alone did resolve the booting situation that you had. I also agree, even with little beefier machine the compile process for me takes a LONG time.

BTW, believe it or not, I didn't make a initrd.img file, the only line I've got in grub is the kernel.