Re: Compiling 2.6 kernel questions

[Glynn Clements <glynn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alex wrote:

> >> Hmm... Are you saying here that it can't be loaded as a module, but
> >> instead must be compiled into the kernel?
> >
> > Whichever filesystem initrd itself uses has to be built-in (otherwise
> > you get the chicken-and-egg problem), but this can be e.g. cramfs; it
> > doesn't need to be writable, or support ownership, permissions, links,
> > etc.
> 
> So if I get a VFS error along the lines of "VFS: Can't mount root
> unknown-block(9,1)" and it panics, what could the cause be?
> 
> I realize this is /dev/md1, and I've built the initrd with md-mod and
> sata_nv, and ext3 is built in, but it's almost like it's ignoring the
> linuxrc in the initrd. If I chroot to it and run /bin/nash /linuxrc,
> it does print my echo statements.

"VFS: Can't mount root" suggests that it's failing to mount the initrd
filesystem. For initrd, the root filesystem passed to the kernel from
the bootloader (via root=) should be /dev/ram0. You also have to tell
the bootloader where to find the filesystem image (e.g. via initrd=
for lilo).

> How can I debug this or capture the full output to analyze?

I don't think that there's much to capture; it appears to be failing
at the first hurdle (mounting initrd).

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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