On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 8:12 AM, Joseph Jezak <jos...@gentoo.org> wrote: <SNIP> > None of these things are weird, they're expected! >
Really? OK - cool then. > When you start the system with "init=/bin/bash", the only thing your > system does is start bash as the only process. Things like mounting > proc, remounting the root file system r/w (and setting up mtab) aren't > done because they're part of the normal startup process. > I need to find a good _SIMPLE_ book on how Linux boots. I'm just a long time use with no real sys admin background so for a decade or longer I just want the things go by at boot and then use my system. > Can you run fsck.ext3 from the shell that starts when you replace init? > I cannot due to the same sort of message I get when trying to boot: e2fsck_check_if_mount: Can't check if filesystem is mounted due to missing mtab file fsck.ext3: Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/hda4 Filesystem mounted or opened exclusively by another program? For kicks I tried umount /dev/hda4 but that complains about the missing mtab file also. It seems from the man page I could force it but I didn't want to do that, and again if I did and it even worked then where would the system read fsck.ext3 from to do the check since it's on /dev/hda4 itself? > Also, which version of udev are you using? I forgot to ask if you're > running ~ppc instead of ppc, you may want to try switching to the > PATA_MACIO driver in order for the system to work properly. udev would be whatever comes with a stable ppc system these days. Other than running ~ppc portage and sandbox the machine is currently all stable with no USE flags. The make.conf file is pretty much empty other than the stuff the install has me put in. (Which mirrors to sync from, etc.) I've gone back and done a couple more experiments: 1) So far anything I try that refers to the drive as /dev/sda4 results in a VFS not syncing type error so at least as far as the boot process goes hda4 seems to be the right device. 2) I tried building in the PATA_MACIO driver but that by itself didn't change anything: (chroot) livecd / # cat /usr/src/linux/.config | grep MACIO CONFIG_PATA_MACIO=y CONFIG_ADB_MACIO=y (chroot) livecd / # The boot still fails at the same point with the same message. Possibly some other ATA driver is being selected ahead of this one and maybe it needs to be removed from the kernel? I don't know what to remove though so I'm sort of stuck on that account. 3) If this is a kernel config issue - and it seem plausible that it is - then I'll point out that the kernel config page of the Gentoo PPC Istall Guide had a possible command that didn't work for me: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-ppc.xml?part=1&chap=7 Specifically: make pmac32_defconfig which supposedly will make a config file that would boot most 32-bit machines. Unfortunately the command doesn't work for me on current kernels. The install guide should be updated to either remove this or make it more clear if I need to do anything more than that command in the /usr/src/linux directory. I've looked around at lots more stuff in my kernel config and compared it to what the Install guide says. I don't see any differences but I suspect there probably are. Thanks! - Mark
