This is a long post. First I give the step-by-step. Questions are at the end.

This is Redhat 7.3 on a Athlon 700 Mgz system.

In trying to get my printer working, I figured out that my USB might not be working.

I tried to get USB to mount during the boot by adding:

usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0

to the /etc/fstab file

But, during the boot sequence, I got a red [ FAILED ] for the usb filesystem.

When I ran make xconfig from the /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-19.7.x directory, it looked like "USB printer support" and "Preliminary USB device filesystem" weren't turned on.

So, I re-configured my current kernel (2.4.18-19.7.x), using xconfig and selecting "y" for those 2 options, as well as most of the other USB options.

I followed the Kernel-HOWTO:
make dep
make clean
make bzdisk (because I start booting from a floppy, then to hdb1 where /boot is)

It wouldn't fit on a floppy, but no big deal since it made the image as well. Right?

So I ran:
make bzlilo

I then tried to make a new boot disk by:
/sbin/mkbootdisk linux-2.4.18-19.7.x

but got "command not found." I had done this before when I upgraded my kernel and it worked...why doesn't it work now?

So, I rebooted from the old floppy...it's still all the same kernel version, so I guess that's why I'm still up and running. I still got the [ FAILED ] message during USB filesystem initialization. I checked my xconfig and the USB options were still selected.

Questions are: Does that mean my kernel re-configuration worked?
Is USB installed now and the fault is elsewhere?
Why didn't mkbootdisk work? It still doesn't....

I'm stumped.

Hope you all can help.

many thanks,
adam

Didya do it as root?

If so, and the file for whatever reason doesn't exist, then go here and get it.

http://www.google.com/linux?hl=en&lr...isk+redhat+7.3


Probably not.

I doubt it, but do a "cat /proc/bus/usb/devices" and see if there is anything there (or view it using "mc").

Mee too!


John