I'm using Mandrake 10. I have built a new kernel (2.4.27) myself which boots just fine, but when it is time to start init nothing happens. The last message the kernel prints is "Freeing unused kernel memory: 160k freed" then the system just sits there.

I can still boot the stock Mandrake kernels without a problem.

Does anybody have a clue? I was thinking about trying to load the kernel with the init=/bin/sh option, but I haven't tried that yet.

Thanks for you help.

You may need to mkinitrd the kernel version you are using.

Also are all the lib/modules in place?

Why use a non-stock kernel in the first place?

ALL modules are pre-compiled in the stock kernel, so there is RARELY any need to recompile the kernel, people who tell you otherwise not-with-standing.

Finally first look for a prebuild RPM or at worst a .src.rpm for the kernel version you want to install. You can usually find these if you look on the update / devel repositories.

With the source.rpm

rpm kernel-xxx.src.rpm

and go to bed.

You can then install the new kernel with

rpm -Uvh /usr/src/RPM/RPM/i586/kernel-xxxx.i586.rpm

the next day.

I need a new kernel becuase I need to run a 2.4 kernel to get my fobbit VOIP device driver to load. It doesn't work with the 2.6 kernels. The stock 2.2.25 kernel with Mandrake 10 doesn't work correctly with Wine.

I downgraded to the 2.4.22 kernel from Mandrake 9.2 which fixes the Wine problems and the problem with getting the fobbit phone device driver to load, but now Apache won't start -- releated to a kernel function that it needs to call for logging that isn't in the 2.4.22 kernel.

I've never had any problems in the past. I've been building kernels since the 1.2 days. I've tried with and without an initrd image, but I always get the same result. It's not a kernel panic. The kernel finishes loading, but init never starts after once the kernel frees it unneeded memory.

Anybody else got any ideas.

Josh

There was a problem in the 2.4.x kernels which affected quite a number of systems.

Have you tried adding the

nolapic

and maybe even

noapm
noacpi

to the kernel load?

Just add it as an argument in Lilo/Grub.

You may need a initrd= line in your lilo configuration. I use the 2.6 kernel, but if you use the advanced function in MCC / bootloader, you get an initrd line space. Make sure it points to the initrd image file associated with your custom kernel, or you can add a line to /etc/lilo.conf like:

initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.8.1-10mdk.img

but of course, make sure the initrd image file is the one for your custom kernel, not my initrd-2.6.8.1-10mdk.img file .

Also, did you use the kernel-source package from Mandrake, or one from kernel.org. I have had troubles with ones from kernel.org, since they are not 'tweaked' for Mandrake.

HTH,