For a long time, I used self-compiled kernels, with no problems.
Recently I installed a debian kernel package, "linux-image-2.6.22-1-686"
(version 2.6.22-3). [It was a tight fit -- my root partition only has
130MB on it, and the debian kernel package used up 60MB -- but it did fit
with about 4MB to spare!]
The problem is that with the new kernel, the system won't boot all the way.
It fails when it tries to mount the root partition, and dumps me into the
ramfs emergency shell. The error message is something generic like "File
not found" (sorry for the vagueness, those boot messages don't get saved
anywhere and I didn't write them down).
I seems like it may be related to udev because if I look in /dev, the disk
device nodes which should be there _aren't there_, even though the disk
hardware is recognized fine by the kernel.
Indeed, I can fix things enough in the emergency shell to get the boot to
succeed; I just use the following commands:
mknod /dev/sda1 b 8 1
mount -text2 /dev/sda1 /root
Then I hit ^D to the shell prompt to exit the shell, and the boot continues
sucessfully (I'm typing in that running system now)!
So it appears that for some reason, udev didn't create the appropriate
/dev/sda1 node for the root to be mounted?!? Oddly, once booting
continues, everything works fine, including mounting of my /usr partition
from /dev/sda3 (notice that I didn't create /dev/sda3 above, and it
certainly wasn't there initially). [I know my raw /dev directory has an
entry for /dev/sda3 from before udev existed; does udev notice that and
somehow copy it?]
With my old self-compiled kernels, I have no problems, using exactly the
same system. Those kernels though, have compiled-in drivers for all my
devices, and don't use initramfs (or initrd) at all, so perhaps it's a
module-loading issue? The last self-compiled kernel I used was version
2.6.19.7 btw.
Does anybody have any idea what's going on, and how I might try to fix it?
BTW, my system uses a SCSI disk with an old Adaptec SCSI card, if that's
relevant... here's some related msgs from dmsg:
SCSI subsystem initialized
...
scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 7.0
<Adaptec 2940 Ultra SCSI adapter>
aic7880: Ultra Single Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 16/253 SCBs
...
scsi 0:0:5:0: Direct-Access SEAGATE ST34555N 0930 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
target0:0:5: Beginning Domain Validation
target0:0:5: FAST-10 SCSI 10.0 MB/s ST (100 ns, offset 15)
target0:0:5: Domain Validation skipping write tests
target0:0:5: Ending Domain Validation
sd 0:0:5:0: [sda] 8888924 512-byte hardware sectors (4551 MB)
sd 0:0:5:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:5:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 93 00 10 08
sd 0:0:5:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO
and FUA
sd 0:0:5:0: [sda] 8888924 512-byte hardware sectors (4551 MB)
sd 0:0:5:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:5:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 93 00 10 08
sd 0:0:5:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO
and FUA
sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
sd 0:0:5:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
Thanks greatly,
-Miles
--
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. [George Carlin]
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