Thanks Ben for the advice and sorry for the latency. The steps you're suggesting are indeed more straightforward. However, the generated .deb packages still fail to install properly. I repeated the procedure on several fresh Debian 8.1 installations, using default settings in the installer, with the same outcome.
After some digging, I realized that the root failure seems to first occur inside the running kernel (!!), during the dpkg installation. Below is the relevant dmesg output during dpkg -i: [ 708.498832] device-mapper: uevent: version 1.0.3 [ 708.498991] device-mapper: ioctl: 4.27.0-ioctl (2013-10-30) initialised: [email protected] [ 709.089486] SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, large block/inode numbers, no debug enabled [ 709.095776] JFS: nTxBlock = 8192, nTxLock = 65536 [ 709.108028] ntfs: driver 2.1.30 [Flags: R/W MODULE]. [ 709.119640] QNX4 filesystem 0.2.3 registered. [ 709.190614] raid6: mmxx1 4992 MB/s [ 709.258663] raid6: mmxx2 5880 MB/s [ 709.326691] raid6: sse1x1 4514 MB/s [ 709.394717] raid6: sse1x2 5192 MB/s [ 709.462765] raid6: sse2x1 9530 MB/s [ 709.530787] raid6: sse2x2 11756 MB/s [ 709.530790] raid6: using algorithm sse2x2 (11756 MB/s) [ 709.530791] raid6: using ssse3x1 recovery algorithm [ 709.532132] xor: automatically using best checksumming function: [ 709.570816] avx : 20117.000 MB/sec [ 709.583698] Btrfs loaded [ 709.587963] fuse init (API version 7.23) [ 709.633347] EXT4-fs (sda2): unable to read superblock [ 709.634932] EXT4-fs (sda2): unable to read superblock [ 709.636302] EXT4-fs (sda2): unable to read superblock [ 709.638439] XFS (sda2): Invalid superblock magic number [ 709.641380] FAT-fs (sda2): utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive! [ 709.641576] FAT-fs (sda2): bogus number of reserved sectors [ 709.641643] FAT-fs (sda2): Can't find a valid FAT filesystem [ 709.642860] FAT-fs (sda2): utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive! [ 709.643015] FAT-fs (sda2): bogus number of reserved sectors [ 709.643080] FAT-fs (sda2): Can't find a valid FAT filesystem [ 709.648183] ntfs: (device sda2): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Primary boot sector is invalid. [ 709.648322] ntfs: (device sda2): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Mount option errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover. [ 709.648423] ntfs: (device sda2): ntfs_fill_super(): Not an NTFS volume. [ 709.650203] MINIX-fs: unable to read superblock [ 709.651596] attempt to access beyond end of device [ 709.651598] sda2: rw=16, want=3, limit=2 [ 709.651600] hfsplus: unable to find HFS+ superblock [ 709.653236] qnx4: no qnx4 filesystem (no root dir). [ 709.654695] You didn't specify the type of your ufs filesystem mount -t ufs -o ufstype=sun|sunx86|44bsd|ufs2|5xbsd|old|hp|nextstep|nextstep-cd|openstep ... >>>WARNING<<< Wrong ufstype may corrupt your filesystem, default is ufstype=old [ 709.657400] hfs: can't find a HFS filesystem on dev sda2 The EXT4-fs, FAT-fs, and ntfs errors seems suspicious, since the hardware doesn't seem faulty. Moreover, I ran this inside different virtual machines, all failing in the same way. Let me know if you'd need any extra information. Stefan On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 7:24 PM, Debian Bug Tracking System < [email protected]> wrote: > This is an automatic notification regarding your Bug report > which was filed against the src:linux package: > > #794849: linux: custom linux-image packages fail to install > > It has been closed by Ben Hutchings <[email protected]>. > > Their explanation is attached below along with your original report. > If this explanation is unsatisfactory and you have not received a > better one in a separate message then please contact Ben Hutchings < > [email protected]> by > replying to this email. > > > -- > 794849: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=794849 > Debian Bug Tracking System > Contact [email protected] with problems > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Ben Hutchings <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Cc: > Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2015 18:21:09 +0100 > Subject: Re: Bug#794849: linux: custom linux-image packages fail to install > On Fri, 2015-08-07 at 12:30 +0200, Stefan Bucur wrote: > > Source: linux > > Severity: serious > > Justification: fails to build from source (but built successfully in the > past) > > > > Dear Maintainer, > > > > * What led up to the situation? > > > > I was trying to create a custom kernel package by following the steps > > at https://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-common-tasks.html. > > > > I changed the ABI version from "4" to "4-s2e". I customized the > > kernel configuration using "make localmodconfig". Then, I built the > > dpkg packages for the 586 subarchitecture (both linux-image and linux > > -headers). > [...] > > It sounds like you've done things in the wrong order or the wrong > directory, because this package can be and is being built from source. > If there's any bug here, it would be in the kernel-handbook package, > but I'm pretty sure it's stil correct. > > It is generally easier to build custom kernels using this approach: > < > http://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-common-tasks.html#s-common-building > >. > > Ben. > > -- > Ben Hutchings > Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Stefan Bucur <[email protected]> > To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[email protected]> > Cc: > Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2015 12:30:12 +0200 > Subject: linux: custom linux-image packages fail to install > Source: linux > Severity: serious > Justification: fails to build from source (but built successfully in the > past) > > Dear Maintainer, > > * What led up to the situation? > > I was trying to create a custom kernel package by following the steps at > https://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-common-tasks.html. > > I changed the ABI version from "4" to "4-s2e". I customized the kernel > configuration using "make localmodconfig". Then, I built the dpkg packages > for the 586 subarchitecture (both linux-image and linux-headers). > > > * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or > ineffective)? > > Subsequently, I also tried using make-kpkg, but the result was the same. > The resulting dpkg package behaved the same (see below). > > > * What was the outcome of this action? > > Building the dpkg packages went OK. However, when I ran "sudo dpkg -i > linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586_3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3_i386.deb", I got a > warning "WARNING: missing /lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586", followed by > another set of errors, including some error messages originating from the > kernel. At the end, the package was left in an inconsistent state: > > $ sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586_3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3_i386.deb > (Reading database ... 31856 files and directories currently installed.) > Preparing to unpack > linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586_3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3_i386.deb ... > Unpacking linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586 (3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3) over > (3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3) ... > Setting up linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586 (3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3) ... > /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools: > update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-s2e-586 > WARNING: missing /lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586 > Ensure all necessary drivers are built into the linux image! > depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586: No > such file or directory > depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory > depmod: WARNING: could not open > /var/tmp/mkinitramfs_cvTqVt/lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586/modules.order: No > such file or directory > depmod: WARNING: could not open > /var/tmp/mkinitramfs_cvTqVt/lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586/modules.builtin: > No such file or directory > /etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub: > Generating grub configuration file ... > Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-s2e-586 > Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-s2e-586 > Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-686-pae > Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-686-pae > done > > I checked the contents of /lib/modules, and found that there is a > 3.16.0-4-586 directory, but not an "-s2e" one, in addition to the one > corresponding to the current kernel: > > $ ls -l /lib/modules > total 8 > drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 7 12:19 3.16.0-4-586 > drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 7 11:17 3.16.0-4-686-pae > > * What outcome did you expect instead? > > I would have expected the dpkg package to install successfully on the > machine. > > > -- System Information: > Debian Release: 8.1 > APT prefers stable-updates > APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable') > Architecture: i386 (i686) > > Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/4 CPU cores) > Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) > Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash > Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) > >
