[gentoo-user] Creating an initrd for loading...
I'm working on a Sparc system (SunBlade 2000 Desktop Server) that needs an initrd image to load (due to having a QLA 2200 SCSI controller); but I am having some trouble with the initrd image. (I had tried the gentoo-sparc list, but it is slow - I'm not getting responses - and I need to finish this server by Friday. And the issue right now is solely the initrd image.) The problem I am having is that the kernel is complaining about not having the initrd image. I have SILO (sparc equiv of LILO) installed, and have told it of the initrd image, but the kernel doesn't seem to find it. (SILO reports all is well, so I can only assume it is finding the initrd image without a problem.) My main question comes down to this: I am using the 'genkernel' package to build install the kernel and initrd image. Both show up in /boot. How much can I rely on genkernel to build a valid initrd image? How can I mount the initrd image to verify it has the modules, etc. and verify it is a valid image? TIA, Ben -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Creating an initrd for loading...
On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 12:35 -0400, Benjamen R. Meyer wrote: I'm working on a Sparc system (SunBlade 2000 Desktop Server) that needs an initrd image to load (due to having a QLA 2200 SCSI controller); but I am having some trouble with the initrd image. (I had tried the gentoo-sparc list, but it is slow - I'm not getting responses - and I need to finish this server by Friday. And the issue right now is solely the initrd image.) The problem I am having is that the kernel is complaining about not having the initrd image. I have SILO (sparc equiv of LILO) installed, and have told it of the initrd image, but the kernel doesn't seem to find it. (SILO reports all is well, so I can only assume it is finding the initrd image without a problem.) My main question comes down to this: I am using the 'genkernel' package to build install the kernel and initrd image. Both show up in /boot. How much can I rely on genkernel to build a valid initrd image? Try genkernel menuconfig all to check for a valid kernel config before genkernel builds it. Refer to genkernel's man-page for further options. How can I mount the initrd image to verify it has the modules, etc. and verify it is a valid image? There is a wiki-entry about it: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Initramfs Hope this helps. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
[gentoo-user] genkernel on sparc won't unmount initrd
I've installed gentoo on an old Ultra 10. I installed the standard 'sparc-sources' kernel (2.4.31) and tried to manually configure it, but the kernel kept crashing on boot. So I installed genkernel and copied the config file from the livecd. FYI: The Ultra 10 uses IDE harddrives, so the root/boot partition is at /dev/hda1. When I reboot, ramdisk kernel loads up but can't find /dev/hda ... instead, I can point it to '/dev/discs/disc0/part1' and it will continue booting (mounting everything as /dev/hdax .., including root). However, during the 'hand-off' (for lack of a better word) to the real kernel, the system complains that it can't umount '/tmp/.initrd/dev' and, instead, leaves it mounted even after the system comes up. To further complicate things, I can't even umount it (the /tmp/.initrd/xx mounts) even after the system is up and running. So far, it doesn't seem to be interferring with the function of the system, but I don't get the impression that this is a good thing and would like to know what I've done wrong. I'm not sure if this is an issue with genkernel, silo (the sparc version of lilo), bad choices on my end in configuring the kernel or a mixture of all three. Does anyone know why the tmp kernel (the ramdisk kernel) could not see '/dev/hda' but rather '/dev/discs/disc0/xxx' until after the real kernel is loaded? TIA, -Hani PS: I'll eventually go back to a manually created kernel, but I'd still like to know what I missed in regards to the genkernel setup.
