Re: custom kernel without initrd and with udev
On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 19:08:14 -0400 (EDT), Mike McClain wrote:
>
> While surely no expert I've been building my own kernels for
> a long time with little trouble but with a recent install of
> 'Squeeze' I'm stumped. I've built, reconfigured, built again for
> several days now. No joy. I've spent hours Googling for any and
> everybody's thoughts on the error: 'Kernel panic - not syncing:
> VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)' with little luck.
>
> Some one did suggest I decompile the initrd that shipped with
> the install. On doing that I discovered that the device files for
> the harddrive are created before the drive is mounted. Booting an
> 'Etch' partition I see that Squeeze's /dev/ is all but empty when
> Squeeze is not running which may have something to do with the
> failure to mount the root partition.
>
> Is anyone running a custom kernel without an initrd with udev?
> Any tips, pointers will be appreciated.
It's getting harder and harder to get along without an initrd these
days. Why is it so important to you not to use one? As others
have pointed out, using a UUID or LABEL specification for the root
file system makes it impossible to get the root file system mounted
if you don't use an initrd. And with modern Linux kernels, I don't
recommend using a traditional device specification, such as /dev/sda1,
because the assignment of kernel minor device numbers and user space
device names no longer can be counted on to occur in any particular
order. It may vary from one boot to the next. My advice is to
"bite the bullet" and convert, permanently, to using an initrd.
By the way, you may find my kernel-building web page useful:
http://users.wowway.com/~zlinuxman/Kernel.htm
--
.''`. Stephen Powell
: :' :
`. `'`
`-
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