the mkinitrd generator simply is not outputting a viable initdrd. it spits out a command but the commands it spits out are simply wrong for my setups. this is on multiple boxes running current. did something change along the way that ive missed? this is super frustrating.

on my desktop it would not put out a viable command but when i did the interactive mkinitrd it gave my a viable command. on my laptop this is not the case

edit:
on my desktop mkinitrd generator interactive spits out a viable initrd string but non interactive does not.... interactive or not it doesnt work on my laptop

I gather you're on Slackware?

The mkinitrd script only needs to have the modules for your had disk / filesystem and the motherboard chipset if it matters. Once it loads /, it should have access to /lib/modules. I've seen 50 meg initrds, I just don't think it's necessary unless you've very exotic happenings on bootup.

Give us some details, including the errors that show when you boot using the dodgy ramdisk, and the commands that are used to make it. And, of course, remove /boot/initrd-tree and reinstall the mkinitrd package.

the only "error" is when i try to boot with a bad initrd .... it simply kernel panics

the command to generate an initrd is /usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh

Can you at least attempt t o show us what the output of the generator is (the interactive as well as the commandline results) and tell more about what kind of kernel panic.
Where is your root partition located? LVM? RAID? LUKS-encrypted? External USB? Exotic controller? WHat filesystem? Etc. All the simple information someone would need to give a meaningful answer.

drive is LVM/LUKS. FS is ext4 unfortunatley i cant rememeber the wrong initrd it spit out nor can i remember the kernel panic info caused by the bad initrd
i did get it working (my laptop). no idea how i did cuz it gave me different initrd examples and i got a good one. now when i run mkinitrd generator on that box thats now running i get still yet about initrd which looks more like it should...3 lines long.. i really have no idea and i cant post/paste the bad initrd lines it was putting out.

i had the same issue on my destop.. plain mkinitrd generator gave me a crap no good line but when i did the interactive immediately after the non interactive it was spot on. booted me right up no probs but again as i say i was getting 2 diff initrd commands from non interactive vs interactive..

i canrt find any logs... does te mkinitrd generator log anywhere/? if not im afraid this is as much info as i can post atm

Do you have an /etc/mkinitrd.conf and if any lines aren't commented, what are they?

i.e., what is the output of:

everything is commented in /etc/mkinitrd.conf.sample
i never knew about the conf file until now. i always just ran the mkinitrd generator without it

during a fresh install how would you edit it anyway?

Have you upgraded these systems from 14.2 to -current, and neglected to upgrade to the new kernel? Are you compiling your own kernels? Are kernel modules installed?

fresh current install with lvm/luks

What did the interactive form output (the one that worked) and what was the mkinitrd_generator.sh command you ran for the variant that did not work?

tommyc7


the command that hasnt been working is simply

re: the command the interactive output theres no was i can remember it. it was 3 full screen lines
(thats adds up to a string approx 69" long LOL)

So run the script again and post the output.

you should run
Also, check lilo.conf(5)

If you're on Slackware, ignore that and simply run (as root)
You might want to add -m <modules> but this in mounted on /. Itonly has to get your root filesystem loaded and mounted on /, at which point it's overwritten by the root filesystem, and vanishes. You don't need the kitchen sink in it.

As others have stated. What is the output of:
What is the output of this?: