[clue-tech] Problems with debian kernel 2.6.15 for 686

[David L. Anselmi]

Angelo Bertolli wrote:
[...]
>> The /scripts stuff is probably from the initrd.  Is there any reason 
>> you might need gzip to mount /dev/hda3?  Obviously if you can't mount 
>> your root partition nothing useful will happen.  Perhaps the initrd 
>> doesn't support your root fs, or you need to rebuild the initrd (the 
>> man pages should tell you how).
> 
> I'm not sure they're related directly.  My boot partition is on 
> /dev/hda1, and my root partition is on /dev/hda3  (had to do this because 
> the BIOS was having problems getting to wherever the kernel happened to 
> land on the disk).  I was thinking gzip was needed for uncompressing 
> something in /boot/ and after that failed, it couldn't mount /dev/hda3


The obvious problem is that your kernel can't mount /dev/hda3 (/root is 
where it gets mounted while the initrd is being used).

The gzip error may be unrelated, though you could look at the scripts in 
the initrd to see what it's for (I don't think this gzip error refers to 
a kernel module, BTW).  It probably isn't used on /boot--/boot isn't 
mounted at that point either.  /boot is read by the boot loader and 
mounted after /.

The only time I've ever seen the kernel unable to mount / is when it 
doesn't have a driver it needs.  The no such device error means that 
/dev/hda3 doesn't exist.  It is probably created by udev which means 
that the hardware detection doesn't work (a udev bug, maybe?) or there's 
no module for it (in the initrd).

So if you get to a busybox shell when this happens, you can poke around 
and see what the initrd scripts want to do, what modules are available, 
what /dev looks like, what /proc/pci looks like, and generally try to 
make /dev/hda3 appear by hand.

But in the end I think your initrd is just broke and if you run the 
command to rebuild it (in the bug link I posted) that will fix things.

You haven't said what initrd you're using or what your other kernel is 
(to see why that might be affected as well).

Dave
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