Compiling 2.6.9-1.724 kernel update

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Tue, Jan 18, 2005 at 10:19:37PM -0500, jbk wrote:
> jbk wrote:
> > 
> > >I get a kernel panic when I boot the latest
> > >compile from grub. I can still boot to the

Please be polite and trim quotes in your posts.  :)

> Well the answer is su -. For what ever reason, the
> initrid that is made without it does not have the
> correct information. 

My guess is that it's because of the setting of the $HOME variable.
If you use the -, $HOME gets reset to /root (or whatever root's home
dir is).  If you don't use '-', $HOME remains set to the home dir of
the user who ran su.  Why this might matter is unclear, but is
probably due to a programming error (or, my guess is wrong).

> So the question is, what does initrid make if the file systems are
> compiled into the kernel? There are no modules so what is the other
> crucial information that is stored in the image that boots the
> system?

In fact it makes a file system which the kernel uses during the boot
process.  It contains modules, for sure; but it also contains a file
called linuxrc which controls part of the boot process.  My guess is
that this file is wrong, or just plain missing.

You can look and see what's in the initrd by first gunzipping it to
some convenient file (if it's a gzipped file system image, which is
normally the case).  Then you can do something like the following to
look at the contents:

  # mount -o loop <my_unzipped_initrd> /mnt/tmp

Of course /mnt/tmp must exist.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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