I just installed debian on my laptop for the first time, and wanted to build my own kernel. However, when I build the kernel, the kernel cannot seem to find any hard drive partitions to mount root on. I went online and read about all the necessary "inclusions" to put in, not just as modules. But it doesn't seem to help. I am unsure how to install a "initrd" but maybe that would help? Ideally, I'd like to leave it out since I don't understand it very well...

Also, would it be helpful for me to post my .config file? If so, how should I do that?

Thanks!

Hi, and welcome to LQ.

You mention, "I went online and read about all the necessary "inclusions" to put in, not just as modules."

Could you post the instructions here, please? It may make it easier for others, including myself.

I'd like to cross reference, I am still using 2.6.17.15, because sata is not automatically configured.

I am interested in an RT(realTime?) kernel for latency in recording software.

You may not be able to paste yet, check your profile.

The config file is long/large, so don't paste it unless you are asked.

This is an old document but here you'll find that the image is installed to /boot as bzImage, check the version numbers there.

QUOTE"bash#make modules_install - 6 & 7 commands for compiling the kernel modules if any.

After the above step bootable kernel image is found under /boot/arch/i386/boot/ directory with the file name 'bzImage'

In order to make the BIOS find the above bootable image file any of the below 2 things can be done" etc.... (end Quote)

http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...d_Symbol_HOWTO

As far as I remember, some of the steps have been removed, when make modules_install is invoked, the image is created and installed in /boot.


Thank you, regards, Glenn

ps, there is a readme file with every kernel package, even .rpm, that also give install instructions. (this is the part I want to check with you, What have you done differently or added to this?) Thanks again, Glenn

This is all I have seen till now.

http://tmb.kkc.fi/Kernels/#modular_ide

Modular IDE:
The kernel-tmb series kernels uses modular ide, so to be able to boot from ide hdd (not SATA) you need the following line in /etc/modprobe.conf:

alias ide-controller module_name

where module_name is the kernel module name that matches your ide chipset.

For example:

atiixp for Ati chipsets,
piix for Intel chipsets,
amd74xx for Amd & Nvidia chipsets,
via82cxxx for Via chipsets,
and so on...

If you added this line after you installed the kernel, you must recreate your initrd and rerun lilo to get your changes used. (If you use grub, forget about the lilo part)

and from here...

http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic....6fb8ee1cb50e83
The kernel-tmb series kernels uses modular ide, so to be able to boot
from ide hdd (not SATA) you need the following line as first line
in /etc/modprobe.conf:

alias ide-controller module_name

where module_name is the kernel module name that matches your ide chipset.

For example:

atiixp for Ati chipsets,
piix for Intel chipsets,
amd74xx for Amd & Nvidia chipsets,
via82cxxx for Via chipsets,
and so on...

If you added this line after you installed the kernel, you must recreate
your initrd and rerun lilo to get your changes used. (If you use grub,
forget about the lilo part)

If you have an IDE CD or DVD player/recorder or a harddisk with other
partitions than / attached to your ide-controller, and your other
harddisks attacched to SATA or SCSI, you need to add the module_name
to /etc/modprobe.preload instead to get it to work.

If you have problems with usb (error "device not accepting address"),
add the line:

options usbcore old_scheme_first=1

to /etc/modprobe.conf

!! Attention !!

Beginning from 2.6.20-4mdv the autoconf stuff has been reworked:
- we dont rely on /etc/init.d/kheader and /boot/kernel.h anymore
- dropped all of the old autoconf hacks
- dropped kernel-tmb-source-stripped(-latest) rpms
- introduced kernel-tmb-$flavour-devel(-latest) rpms to build 3rdparty
drivers against (survives test: make mrproper oldconfig prepare scripts)
- kernel-tmb-source rpm does not include any autoconf stuff anymore

For more info about the kernel-tmb series, check out:

http://www.iki.fi/tmb/Kernels/

Regards, Glenn

Okay, let me rephrase:
I first installed Debian from the CD, which worked pretty well. But, now I want to install a kernel from source. I downloaded and extracted the kernel sources into /usr/src, made the linking directory "linux", and ran make menuconfig.

To configure the kernel, I followed this advice:
"If you attempt to reboot, the laptop will not come up successfully: the stock kernel is missing the AHCI SATA drivers (i.e. missing Kernel options CONFIG_SCSI_SATA and CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_AHCI) required and will complain that it can't mount the root partition."

I put "*" for "Serial ATA and Parallel ATA Drivers", for "SCSI device support" and for "SCSI disk support" and "general support", and then in low level drivers for all the "IBM" or "intel" options. Then, in "ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL Support", I checked the "Intel PIIXn chipsets support".

What else do I need to include for the kernel to successfully find the HDD?

Hi, That's a good question, I hope somebody else reads this.

I just tried to reinstall a new kernel and have had the same problem I had before. I'm still lost.

I'll keep an eye open for this thread.

Cheers, Glenn