sarge doesn't upgrade. howto hda -> sda

[soccercisco]

Hi all,

1) Ok so I installed sarge from a dvd that came with a book (minimal install). And after configuring the base system I decided to do an dist-upgrade (after modifying my sources.list accordingly [I know the ones I changed work on my other computer!]) and to my surprise the kernel didn't get upgraded.

Q1: why my dist-upgrade doesn't upgrade the kernel

2) Naturally, I tried upgrading it by hand but came across the issue of my computer hanging for about 1 min (waiting for root file system) and then it said that couldn't find /dev/hda2 (root partition). I googled, and figured out that I need to change hdax to sdax (because of my new kernel). I went to the /etc/fstab and did so, but it still gives me problems at boot, any thoughts?

Q2: howto/whereto change hdax to sdax so boot recognizes the change?

Cheers,

[Vergil83]

Q1: why my dist-upgrade doesn't upgrade the kernel

I assume you mean you upgraded to etch..... Etch is going to use 2.6 by default, but will support the old 2.4 if you are upgrading from sarge. I assume that is why.

2) Naturally, I tried upgrading it by hand but came across the issue of my computer hanging for about 1 min (waiting for root file system) and then it said that couldn't find /dev/hda2 (root partition). I googled, and figured out that I need to change hdax to sdax (because of my new kernel). I went to the /etc/fstab and did so, but it still gives me problems at boot, any thoughts?

Q2: howto/whereto change hdax to sdax so boot recognizes the change?

sdx is for usb things...... How did you install the new kernel?

[soccercisco]

sorry for the lack of details.

I assume you mean you upgraded to etch..... Etch is going to use 2.6 by default, but will support the old 2.4 if you are upgrading from sarge. I assume that is why.

yep... all packages upgraded to their etch versions except the kernel. Although on my other box the kernel was upgraded along (although now that I think about it, I believe I did a netinstall from an etch CD)

sdx is for usb things...... How did you install the new kernel?

I did an apt-get install linux-image-2.6.18-3-686

I believe, IMHO, that sdx is also for SATA drives right? My other box is sda1--sda7 for partitions and sdb1 for my external USB hdd.

So, when I was reading about the issue, I found that I could boot by pressing e on the bootloader and changing the hda2 to sda2 (in my particular case those are the numbers for the root partition).

Let me know if this is still not clear.

Thanks for your help!

Cheers,

[Vergil83]

I believe, IMHO, that sdx is also for SATA drives right? My other box is sda1--sda7 for partitions and sdb1 for my external USB hdd.

Oh yea, I forgot about that.
When you changed it to sda, did you also change it in grub (or lilo)?

[soccercisco]

in grub.

However the change is not permanent.

I can get through the boot process, but when I am able to log in, bash is not working properly (more on this in a little bit, I'm trying to mess around with mtab, fstab, and whatever I can find )

Thanks for the prompt reply!

Cheers,

[soccercisco]

I'm really happy! Can't believe I solved it by myself (I love Debian)

Ok here it goes!

I did the following changes:

on /etc/mtab and /etc/fstab I changed my partitions from hdaX (where X is a number from 2--7) to sdaX.

Then I went to /boot/grub and changed the the device.map to (hd0) /dev/sda

Then also in /boot/grub I changed menu.lst for the 2.6.18-3-686 kernel to boot from sda2 (In particular I changed root=/dev/hda2 to root=/dev/sda2)

Cheers,