Re: Problems creating a bootable Debian installation on a Jaz drive (fwd)
>
>
>
> Hello all --
>
> I have recently been trying to make a bootable Debian installation on a
> Jaz drive. I did this by using 'cp -a' to transfer files from my scsi
> hard drive to the Jaz drive. I then changed the Jaz drive version of
> /etc/fstab so that it would mount /dev/sdb1 (the jaz drive) as / and
> commented out the mount lines for the normal scsi hard drive / and
> /home partitions. I made a boot floppy for this configuration (copied
> vmlinuz to a temporary location, used rdev to set the root device as
> /dev/sdb1 on the temporary copy, then used dd to transfer that copy to
> a floppy). The problem is /proc -- I have tried three different things
> with it, and all have their problems...
> 1.) If I cp -a the whole /proc directory to the Jaz drive, the boot (with
> the boot floppy using /dev/sdb1 as the root partition) will proceed okay
> until the initial login prompt. Then it basically freezes, and after a
> wait, starts producing lines like the following:
Don't copy the contents of /proc. It is not a normal filesystem. The
`files' that it shows are actually a fancy interface to the kernel,
they do not exist anywhere on a disk. You have to have a directory
/proc though. The proc file system is used by programs such as top and
ps.
>
> scsi: aborting command due to timeout: ...
>
> at which point it is necessary to push the reset button and restart the
> machine, and boot into the Linuz which used the scsi hard drive as the
> root partition.
>
> 2.) If I make a /proc directory on the Jaz drive, but do not copy the
> contents of /proc from my hard drive to the Jaz drive, the same happens
> as above, except that it doesn't get all the way to the prompt before
> the scsi timeouts start; it gets through the lines about starting sshd,
> then does what I described above. (If it helps, in a normal boot, the
> next lines printed out at boot time after the one about sshd are
> ones concerning starting remote file services and such.)
>
> 3.) If I totally ignore doing anything about the /proc directory on
> the Jaz, the boot will proceed and will get to the prompt okay, but
> will complain during the boot process. For example, after the message
> about checking the root file system, it will print out the following:
[ apparently many programs use /proc in some way or other ]
My advice would be to compile a new kernel (make-kpkg) that includes the
proc file system, not as a module, and then see what happens.
Eric Meijer
--
E.L. Meijer (tgakem@chem.tue.nl) | tel. office +31 40 2472189
Eindhoven Univ. of Technology | tel. lab. +31 40 2475032
Lab. for Catalysis and Inorg. Chem. (TAK) | tel. fax +31 40 2455054
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