Kernel 2.6.6 can't load my root filesystem
 

Hi, I'm trying to compile my own optomized kernel for my Pentium II 266 with an Al440LX
Intel motherboard.

I'm running Debian and was able to use the default Debian 2.6.6 kernel with no problems.
The only issue was that kernel was rather large and slower than the much slimmer 2.2.20
the Debian 3.0 r2 installation CD setup. I would like to be able to use some of the nifty
features of 2.6.6 (such as IDE burning) and better sound support, etc. so I made my own.
I built my own off the kernel.org source and it compiled fine with my various tools. I
installed it and configured lilo, etc. for use with initrd. The kernel loaded correctly and
proceeded through the boot sequence until it came to the RAM drive, it loaded the RAM
drive and then panics, saying it can't load the root filesystem. My best guess is that it
can't read the RAM drive? Or I have some hardware options missing from the kernel,
however, to my best knowledge everything I need is installed directly into the kernel and
I shoundn't even need an initrd, but I made one anyway.

I currently have: PCI support, IDE generic and drive support, PIIX chipset support,
ext3+ext2 file support, ethernet (I have an SMC and am using the epic100 code) all
compiled directly into my kernel.

I also don't know how to access the log from my kernel after booting from a working one.
This might help me see defferences in the loading patterns if there is an option for that.
My first instinct is to make a more generic-like kernel and see if that load correctly, then
try to optomize it by removing hardware support I don't need. Compiling and checking along
the way till I pull out something I really needed. However, since I'm compiling this on my
266, (my faster computers still run windows) I would like a less compiler intensive solution.

-Thanks in advance.

Welcome to LQ.

If you don't use the ram drive for anything then just remove the entry from the bootloader config.

Can the initrd mess things up if it isn't needed? I did this just to be sure I didn't need
some modules to load my root filesystem.