Re: missing initrd image

[Shyamal Prasad <shyamal.prasad@sbcglobal.net>]

    "Matthew" == Matthew Bennett <bennettm@hotpop.com> writes:

    Matthew> I'm using 3.0r1 with a custom 2.4.22
    Matthew> kernel. /boot/grub/menu.lst contains: 

    title Debian
    root (hd0,6)
    kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7
        initrd /initrd

    Matthew> However, /initrd is an empty directory on my system, so
    Matthew> it complains and I have to manually enter the first two
    Matthew> lines in the grub shell to boot. Booting this way causes
    Matthew> a lot of 'modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-xyz'

You should set initrd to the name of the *file* containing the initrd
image you want to use. To create initrd images see 'man mkinitrd'.

What are the contents of /etc/modules on your system. I suspect most
of the errors you are seeing have to do with the contents of
/etc/modules.conf

    Matthew> errors, and although I can ping localhost, trying
    Matthew> anywhere else fails with 'network unreachable.

I don't think this fault has anything to do with your initrd
image. How are you assigning IP addresses to your network
interface. Is it via a DHCP server? If so, check to see it the DHCP
query brought up the interface.

    Matthew>  From what I've read, loading initrd seems to be
    Matthew> necessary for loading modules, but I don't really know
    Matthew> what its function is. Should I have an initrd image, and
    Matthew> why is /initrd an empty directory? Thanks for any help.

initrd is used to load modules that are required to boot the system,
but are needed before the file system is available. If you don't have
this case you don't need it. On a custom kernel you really don't have
a reason to use initrd. The canonical case for initrd is to load a
file system module to boot a root partition that uses that very file
system. 

Cheers!
Shyamal