>> boot=LABEL=<boot_device_label> >> >> in grub config work for you? > > I hoped so, but actually no. Grub complains at boot time not finding the > root device. Is this available in the grub-0.97 series at all?
I am not sure about grub 2, but 0.97 knows nothing about filesystem labels (and neither does the kernel itself). Where the syntax above works, it's because the distribution provides an initramfs containing (among other things) a script which looks at the kernel commandline and figures out the correct device node before attempting to mount the root filesystem. The only sensible way to handle the OP's problem is to have everything USB-related (or at least usb-storage) built as a module. Why would you want USB compiled in the kernel, anyway? Even if you were using an USB keyboard, you would not be able to do much if the boot process does not even reach the point where udev starts loading modules... andrea
