Re: Compiling vanilla kernel issues.

That's right. It sounds like your initramfs is missing drivers for the IDE/SATA/SAS system. In other words, your kernel loads, but without the drivers either a) built-in to the kernel or b) present in the initramfs, it has no way of detecting and subsequently mounting your disks which contain the root partition "/".

I would do `lspci` to find out what chipset the SPARC system uses, then see if you find which of the drivers that `lsmod` shows is responsible for that. You may be able to use `dmesg | more` to see what driver detects the disks as well -- pretty much every driver prints debug messages about the disks it finds. Alternatively, if you know the model of the system (e.g. Sun Ultra 80), then you can look up the hardware / drivers using your favorite search engine or see if anyone knows off hand on the list.

Good luck!

Patrick Baggett

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 8:37 PM, Kieron Gillespie <ciaran.gillespie@gmail.com> wrote:

So current when I build the vanilla kernel using the typical Debian method with make deb-pkg I end up with a kernel that panic's on boot.

It says,
--CUT--
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/1 Not tainted 3.12.0-rc #1
Call Trace:
--END CUT--

Any ideas? If someone has instructions on how they typically build there kernel for SPARC system I would like to know. Though this is how I always have done it in the past it just recently stop working after 3.8.x series.

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 9:14 AM, Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com> wrote:

I didn't have any problems, but I'm not using initramfs. To build a kernel 'the debian way', you might need to find a guide or maybe someone else can chime in?

On Sep 18, 2013 10:05 PM, "Kieron Gillespie" <ciaran.gillespie@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello everyone,

Was wondering if anyone had any success compiling any of the vanilla Linux kernel's on their SPARC wheezy systems with anything after version 3.8.x.

Every time I try to build myself a new kernel I seem to end up with a kernel that is unable to boot complaining about not being able to find the root file system. I was wondering if anyone has any information on how I can configure and build the Linux kernel for my various SPARC systems.

-Kieron