OK, I'm running Slacware current. Ran the updates this morning, including kernel 2.6.33.2. I always get nervous about that since something often goes wrong. Sure enough -

trying to boot I get

No kewrnel modules found for Linux 2.6.33.2-smp
mount: mounting /dev/sda9 on /mnt failed: No such device
ERROR: No /sbin/init found on rootdev ( or not mounted )

and failure to proceed with booting. I got an original warning about the initial ram disk being too big to fit and switched to using generic kernel, and yes I did run lilo afterwards and did add the initrd.gz line.

Any help would be appreciated. I run Ubuntu on the same laptop and have to boot into that and work as chroot in my Slackware partition to try and fix things.

Donald

Have you tried manually downloading that kernel and configuring, compiling, and installing it by hand as a "secondary" kernel?

I always tend to avoid auto-updates precisely for the reason you specify - they too often go completely wrong.

However, I've compiled several kernels by hand, it really is not that hard. What you'd probably encounter is that the kernel compilation will stop somewhere with a descriptive error message... and THAT is what you want. Then you'll probably be able to know why the auto-update failed on your system with your particular hardware. You've probably got something in the new kernel that invalidates it for use on your system.

My advice would thus be to download the kernel version you want to run, and compile it "by hand".

I've also had newly compiled kernels fail to boot - which is why I've always kept my older, working kernel in my grub.conf. So if a kernel fails to boot, it is as simple as hitting reset and simply selecting the older, working kernel for booting in grub when the system starts up. Then I can tinker with the recalcitrant new kernel's config and try to compile it again.

I suspect the auto-update did NOT leave the older, working kernel around as a backup, or did it?

I think new kernel doesnot have some modules/drivers for disk controler. Do you have marked it in configuration?

Sadly I haven't got an older kernel saved to switch to. Note to self, always keep a working version I can revert to in future!

Lack of modules/drivers sounds like that might be it. It's complaining there is no /proc/partitions and cannot find /dev/sda9.

Queston - why release a kernel without the necessary modules/drivers?

What do I do now to get my Slackware back? Am thinking I will simply re-install (loathe to go through that again though) Slackware 13.0 and update to that, avoiding 'current' in future.

Don

Good point. Do you know if the person who put that update together did the

step of the kernel compilation? Were these modules then included in the actual kernel you eventually ended up with?

Omitting the "make modules" step might give the error messages on boot you posted. Do you have an IDE or SATA HDD?

I have SATA I believe.

Don

The modules package should have been updated too. Not sure why it wasn't but it could be that your mirror wasn't completely updated.

http://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub...3.2-i486-1.txz

I would try doing slackpkg upgrade-all again.

It would be helpful if you could detail the steps you have taken.

Did you run lilo before adding the initrd.gz? It should be the other way around.
Did you create the /boot/initrd.gz in the first place using mkinitrd (refer to /boot/mkinitrd.README or something like that. I'm sorry but I'm not in front of my Slacwkare machine right now)?

Useful information is available at README.initrd

Also what was your starting point before upgrade: Slackware 13.0 or latest -current (i.e. dated 5th April 2010)?

Current was updated yesterday, it is entirely possible that there was an incomplete update if run in the last 12 - 18 hours.

Hello everyone, thanks for the replies.

I did run lilo after adding the initrd and made the initrd with makeinitrd.

I've booted into Ubuntu and chroot. Am trying to run slackpkg update but keep getting an error message -

Resolving ............. failed: Temporary failure in name resolution.
wget: unable to resolve host address .........
Error downloading from .............
Please check you mirror and try again.

I have tried different mirrors but always get this error message.

Don

No kernel modules found for Linux 2.6.33.2-smp
mount: mounting /dev/sda9 on /mnt failed: No such device

These errors point to an incorrectly created initrd, most likely the correct kernel was not passed to mkinitrd.
By default mkinitrd is going use the running kernel, you have to tell it explicitly to use the newly added kerenl.

Thanks Gizzmo. I did use the right kernel version. Even reran the whole mkinitrd process (and not forgetting to run lilo again afterwards). No effect - I still get the error message and cannot continue booting.

Any idea why I cant update from the mirrors?

Don

What does show? What does show?

Richard,

I get

ls -l /boot/initrd-tree/lib/modules
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2010-04-21 08:47 2.6.33.2

cat /boot/initrd-tree/load_kernel_modules
insmod -v /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/fs/mbcache/ko
insmod -v /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/fs/jbd/jbd.ko
insmod -v /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/fs/ext3/ext3.ko

Don

For some reason, the kernel you are using to boot reports itself as 2.6.33.2-smp but the modules you are telling mkinitrd to put in the initrd are for 2.6.33.2.

I'm running Slackware64 13.0 and my SMP enabled kernel simply calls itself 2.6.29.6.