Red Hat custom Kernel compilation mini-How-To for Red Hat 8-9

angel_hva · 04-06-2004, 06:04 AM

Wow, I installed kernel 2.6.4 but when everything is done, I try to boot and get message:
No initd found
I saw kernel 2.6.4 beside 2.4.8-20 for me to choose (at GRUB). What's wrong here?

Every commands I typed:
make oldconfig
make menuinstall
make modules_install install

Thetargos · 04-06-2004, 06:19 AM

You will have to choose by hand (make menuconfig) to compile RAM disk support into the kernel and then just the size of the initrd set to 8192 or 4096 and then support for initial RAM disk...

Thetargos · 04-07-2004, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by dleidlein
BTW Thetargos, if you email me, just reply to the address I sent from Not the one in my profile.

When I applied the patch to the 2.6.5 sources, it got 4 chunks as already detected, so I skipped those. Unlike 2.6.4, I don't see the configuration entry for the SII6514/3114 either in menuconfig nor in g/xconfig... Was it under ATA device drivers?

dleidlein · 04-07-2004, 04:30 PM

I believe it was under SCSI low-level drivers -> SATA
make sure you have prompt for incomplete drivers maybe?
Did you patch the source to 2.6.5-rc3 as well? Don't know if it makes a difference but that's what I did

Thetargos · 04-07-2004, 04:34 PM

I'm working with 2.6.5 final right now.

Edit My fault, it was there all the time, but I just did not see it when I searched the SCSI lowlevel drivers....

Thetargos · 04-07-2004, 04:39 PM

Ok, I'll recompile now with it enabled, and the ATA section SIlicon Image driver disabled, OK? Since I don't have such a device I don't expect it to be much of a help, just will confirm that it builds alright.

Thetargos · 04-07-2004, 05:23 PM

Well... all building process went OK...

dleidlein · 04-07-2004, 05:44 PM

the problem arose on the make install part, and if it's "disabled".....sorry a little confused.

Thetargos · 04-07-2004, 05:54 PM

Sorry maybe I just did not make myself clear. The kernel compiled and installed just fine (boots alright) with:

Code:

Device Drivers-->
      SCSI support--->
               SCSI lowlevel drivrers-->
               <*> SATA support-->
                     <m>  Silicon Image

The other Silicon Image driver (under the ATA section) is disabled (the driver for the 3112 chipset), and built with this one instead enabled as a module (to avoid any confusion when loading the modules) Also RAID and LVM is enabled in modes linear, 0, 1, 4/5. So to answer your question, yes, here the driver builds just fine.

dleidlein · 04-08-2004, 09:06 AM

gotcha, I'm working on a linux from scratch system - going to try it that way. One more question if I may, if it's compiled as a module, that will still load it @ boot time right?? My whole purpose behind this is to make a kernel that I can put on cd to boot from.

Thanks so much for the testing Thetargos! So it's got to be some kind of dependency that I need to trace down, make it stop trying to link to that sil6514.

Thetargos · 04-08-2004, 12:21 PM

You are welcome

Most definitely yes. I guess the older driver introduced a dependency in the 2.4.20-8 system.map file that's searched when creating the new image. The module (being a Drive controller) should load upon hardware detection, I've never had problems with device drivers such as these compiled as modules.

angel_hva · 04-15-2004, 01:28 AM

Quote:

You will have to choose by hand (make menuconfig) to compile RAM disk support into the kernel and then just the size of the initrd set to 8192 or 4096 and then support for initial RAM disk...

I did it but still like I discribed. What's problem here?

New commands list I typed:
make oldconfig
make menuconfig (I wrote wrong, not menuinstall)
make modules
make modules_install install

Thetargos · 04-15-2004, 01:30 AM

You sure you have installed init-modules-tools (or what ever the package name is, modutils in rpm format).

birras · 04-19-2004, 01:15 AM

installed 2.6.5 on rh9 (after several attempts)and got following troubles:

cdrom/floppy : device does not exist

installed the patched nvidia driver, but have to reinstall it everytime i boot in order to startx...

??any ideas ??

Thetargos · 04-19-2004, 02:36 AM

Ok, please just make sure you have the following devices (or symlinks) in your /dev/ directory:

/dev/cdrom, should be pointing to the /dev/hd* you have your CD-Rom in. If you've got a CD burner which was using ide-scsi emulation from the kernel command line (in GRUB), remove the line hd*=ide-scsi from your /etc/grub.conf file in the 2.6.5 entry. If you use ide-scsi emulation, the device will be pointing to /dev/scd*, in order to have it back change the symlink accordingly. Suppose you have your CD as the first IDE device on the second IDE channel (hdc), make the cdrom link point to that device. Remove the previous link and re-create it (as root):
Code:
```
cd /dev/
rm -f cdrom
ln -sf /dev/hdc cdrom
```
Then make sure it appears on /etc/fstab*
/dev/fd0, this device should exist under /dev, and make sure it exist under /etc/fstab.
The same goes for the nvidia devices, you shuould have at least 6 devices with the nvidia name follwed by a number and one named nvidiactl, just make sure all of them are in mode 666 (rw-rw-rw). If they're not, use chmod to change that (chmod 666 nvidia*)

*The entries in /etc/fstab should look like this:

Code:

/dev/fd0                /mnt/floppy            auto    noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0
/dev/cdrom              /mnt/cdrom              udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0

If they are still not recognized up on re-boot, take out the kudzu option, so kudzu will not probe for them (but will still be available in fstab for you to mount them).