Re: Possible bug in 2.6.2-rc1-ben1 and XFS?
OK,
After some more investigation, I found that the problem lies when
compiling HFS support in the kernel and trying to boot a root filesystem
that has a name starting by a letter "bigger than" H (such as UFS, if
you could have a / in such a fs! :), or in my case, XFS.
The file init/do_mounts.c has a function that after getting all the
filesystems compiled in the kernel, iterates through them, one by one,
trying to mount the / partition. Since h(fs) is "lower" than x(fs), the
loop tries to mount my /dev/hda4 as hfs, and this, _somehow_ manages to
break the loop and produces the kernel panic.
This last bit is made from "guessing" a little bit about what could be
going on there, because I just cannot understand why is panics...
The loop is supposed to move on if one of the mounts fails! It _should_
fail nicely since it is xfs and not hfs, but the hfs thingie manages to
break the boot process.
I donŽt mind much, since compiling as modules fixes all the problems
(the boot problem and my problem, since I should learn to keep the
kernel simple :-D ) but I think the error is _quite_ obscure, since the
VFS: Cannot mount root and the panic usually happen because of devfs or
because of passing a wrong root= but _not_ because you compiled support
for a filesystem that you donŽt use (at boot time).
Anyways, it was quite interesting to work it out :-D If anyone wants to
fix it, and needs testing, I an happy to help.
Cheers,
--
J. Javier Maestro
<jjmaestro@computer.org>
http://rigel.homelinux.com
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