I was trying to create a bootable USB flash disk following this guide :
4.3.3.2. Preparing Files For USB Memory Stick Booting > the flexible way > adding installer image
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch04s03. html.en#usb-copy-flexible
Booting the USB installer gives me a 'kernel panic - vfs unable to mount root fs' booting the USB installerThis is strange, because several months ago i did successfully create a debian installer, using the same cd-image, following this same guide, and installed this Debian (i'm currently using to write this mail) into this machine.After struggling almost an hour, i got it working. I found that the content of the syslinux.cfg is the culprit since I cant boot without the syslinux.cfg file and manually provide the boot parameter at boottimeboot: vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gzI learned that this machine i was using to create the USB installer is on debian jessie having syslinux version 6.03.
Then this is what I got from the syslinux site:
http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Directives/ append
Take the following simple configuration:
DEFAULT mykernel APPEND root=/dev/sda2Note that the APPEND line here is a global directive, as it is not part of any LABEL entry.
For Syslinux 4.xx and older, the above simple configuration works as (it used to be) expected.
Since version 5.00, the result for the above sample configuration is that the root=/dev/sda2 argument is not parsed, which will lead to unexpected results, most probably with some kind of failure to boot the OS. In other words, the global APPEND is ignored by the DEFAULT directive.
For the above example, the configuration could be re-written as:
DEFAULT mykernel root=/dev/sda2or even better as:
DEFAULT mylabel LABEL mylabel KERNEL mykernel APPEND root=/dev/sda2which "moves" the global APPEND line into the new LABEL entry.
Generally speaking, it is recommended to have at least one LABEL entry.
Well, i struggled almost an hour reformating the USB, and copying several times :( for this simple fix.. this means i'm still a newbie.But from my point of view, i think... the installation guide might need a bit changes. Am I right?This is content of the syslinux.cfg the from installation guide :Shouldn't it be something like this?default vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.gzdefault debi
label debi kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz