RE: Debian on Sparc 4 - woody to sarge

[Jurij Smakov <jurij@wooyd.org>]

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005, Steve Lewis wrote:

> I have since tried to upgrade my kernel to the
> kernel-image-2.4.27-2-sparc32_2.4.27-2_sparc.deb package but had a
> kernel panic, unable to mount root fs error on the reboot.  I think this
> could be a silo.conf error.  I did add the initrd line to silo.conf but
> I didn't include a root=/dev/sda1 line.  I had a look around for a
> decent (full and complete) example of a silo.conf file but couldn't find
> one on the net.

The manual page accessible with 'man silo.conf' command contains extensive 
documentation. Here's my working silo.conf:

root=/dev/hda2
partition=1
default=Linux
read-only
timeout=100

image=/vmlinuz
        label=Linux
        initrd=/initrd.img

image=/vmlinuz.old
        label=LinuxOLD
        initrd=/initrd.img.old

Note that in my configuration /boot is a separate partition (/dev/hda1), 
which is also default (set by partition=1), so paths to the files are 
given relative to that partition. So setting image=/vmlinuz when the 
default partition is 1 will actually try to load file vmlinuz from the 
root of partition 1, which translates to /boot/vmlinuz.

Also, if your silo.conf is broken, you still should be able to boot by 
typing something like this at the boot prompt:

linux image=1/boot/vmlinux-2.4.27-2-sparc32 initrd=1/boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-2-sparc32 root=/dev/sda1

If you are still having trouble, post your silo.conf and we should be able 
to figure it out.

Best regards,

Jurij Smakov                                        jurij@wooyd.org
Key: http://www.wooyd.org/pgpkey/                   KeyID: C99E03CC