Kernel panic with reiserfs as root

[Joel Hammer]

Just to let folks know about lindows and 2.4.20. This all can be
skipped. I am just writting this down for future use.

I loaded the headers and the sources (in that order) from lindows. I was
hoping to keep the splash screen and all. Unfortunately, there was no
.config file and no initrd file with it. So, when you run make xconfig,
the thing defaults to this totally modular kernel. Every single thang
almost that could be a module was a module. Do you know how much time
it takes to go through and unclick all those things?

I gave up on doing initrd the right way or any way for that matter.
The documentation for initrd is simply not written for people like me. Some
of it is not even writen for anyone. For example, here is man mkcrampfs:
     NAME
            mkcramfs - make a compressed ROM file system
     SYNOPSIS
            mkcramfs dirname outfile
     DESCRIPTION
            This manual page documents briefly the mkcramfs
            command.  This manual
     page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution
     (but may be used by others), because the original program
     does not have a manual page.
            mkcramfs constructs a CramFs from the contents
            of dirname.  The image
            of the resulting file system is placed in  outfile. 
     AUTHOR
            mkcramfs is written by Linus Torvalds.  Manual page
            added by Herbert Xu.

Big help, no? I think that mkcrampfs is used in making initrd.gz, but,
how would I know? Anyway, the initrd.gz file has a directory structure
I had no idea had to make. I think I solved the problem with my best
friend, vi. I just changed all occurences of 2.4.19 to 2.4.20 in the old
initrd.gz file. It seemed to work but the thang still wouldn't boot,
so I decided to go for simplicity.

I removed everything I thought was not needed and tried to compile. I
kept getting errors in the kernal.o file. I finally made that stop by
chosing SMP, but, the thang still wouldn't boot.

I finally got smart, and edited the lilo.conf to get rid of the fancy splash
screen so I could see the errors. I was hanging during probing of the hard
drives, and then hanging later when the boot directory was being loaded.


TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT:
Using the default choices provided by a fresh download and make xconfig,
I made every default chosen module into a "y" response up through and
including the general setup. Then, everything after that was made either
a y or n response, no more modules except for a few having to do with
usb. I was very stingy about what I accepted from this point on. Speed
was important in recompiling!

Then, the thing compiled but still wouldn't boot. I finally had to remove
the /lib/modules/2.4.20 directory and rerun make modules_install and also depmod
-ae 2.4.20.

So, that's what it took. The bottom line is the fancy eye candy is best
gotten rid of immediately and modular kernels are overrated.

Oh, one more thing. Lindows likes to remove my new lilo.conf file when
it reboots and replaces it with the original lilo.conf file. I still
haven't found out how that happens yet, but, it is quite annoying.

My Zire still won't work.

Joel

On Sat, Apr 19, 2003 at 07:11:07PM -0400, Joel Hammer wrote:
> Well, the thang finally booted. I will write down all that it took just so
> others might be spared this nonsense.
> Later.
> Now,I have to see if the Zire works.
> 
> Joel
> 
> On Sat, Apr 19, 2003 at 06:00:08PM -0400, Joel Hammer wrote:
> > I am trying to rebuild my kernel. I have gotten to the point where I have
> > almost everything built in, obviating the need, I think, for initrd.
> > The kernel boots but fails mounting the root directory, which is a reiserfs
> > file system. I get the kernal panic message.
> > 
> > As the kernel fails, it tries to load the reiserfs module, then the
> > ide-probe module. This is odd because neither of these two modules has been
> > compiled and I have build both this items into the kernel.
> > 
>