Kernel 2.6.6 difficulties

[n3wo]

I should have waited before posting the previous message; I've just done man grub and info grub and learned how to re-install grub on the MBR . It now works fine, but I'm getting the same error as before:

mounting root filesystem
mount: error 19 mounting ext3
pivotroot: pivot_root (/sysroot, /syroot/initrd) failed: 2
umount /initrd/proc failed: 2
freeing unused kernel memory: 252K freed
kernel panic: no init found. try passing init= option to kernel.


Here is my grub.conf file, in case there is anything wrong with it.

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda2
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.6.6)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.6 ro root=/dev/hda0=/
        initrd /initrd-2.6.6.img
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
        initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

Mod edit - fixed the code tags

[Opnosforatou]

Read Here.



Example:

title Fedora Core (2.6.5)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/bzImage-265 ro root=/dev/hda6 rhgb
# initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.5.img

Yours would become:

title Red Hat Linux (2.6.6)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.6 ro root=/dev/hda0
#        initrd /initrd-2.6.6.img

[n3wo]

I don't know how the smiley got into the grub.conf file, but the line should look like "redhat 2.4.20-8"

[Dolda2000]

Remove that "initrd" line from the 2.6.6 kernel entry and try again.

[n3wo]

Alright, I've managed to get rid of the other errors (pivot root, etc) but am still stuck with "no init found..." I've tried removing the initrd line from my grub.conf, but that doesn't help. Is there more I need to do? It looks like it is mounting ext3fs just fine, and I know that I compiled the ext3fs drivers into the kernel.
BTW, my root= line only works if it looks like this

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.6 ro root=/dev/hda1

Thanks for sticking with me for so long...

[Dolda2000]

I don't think that it is /dev/hda1 that it should be, since /dev/hda1 is your boot partition (or at least so it looks from your grub.conf).

Double check what partition your root filesystem resides on.

[n3wo]

You're right, /dev/hda2 solved all the initial bootup problems ("no init found, etc) But now when I boot up, a little way into the list of items with "OK" to the right, comes

mounting root filesystem: error: ext3 fs not supported by the kernel

I said yes to the boxes in the "filesystem" section of the config program (xconfig) that said ext3 and ext3 extended attributes and something else.

Is there anywhere else I might have missed an ext3 config question? (I've re-compiled three times now to check...)

[Dolda2000]

That's a bit strange. Can you check if ext3 is present if you run "cat /proc/filesystems"?

[n3wo]

nodev	rootfs
nodev	bdev
nodev	proc
nodev	sockfs
nodev	tmpfs
nodev	shm
nodev	pipefs
	ext2
nodev	ramfs
	iso9660
nodev	devpts
	ext3
nodev	usbdevfs
nodev	usbfs
	vfat

When booted into 2.4.20-8

ext3 is not present in /proc/filesystems when booted into 2.6.6
I am unable to post the exact output because I'm using a usb flash drive formatted with vfat, which the kernel also said is not supported!!

[Dolda2000]

OK - can you boot back into 2.6 and check the output of the following commands?

cat /proc/sys/kernel/modprobe
modprobe -V

And one command that you can check from either kernel, at your choice:

cd into the kernel source directory of the 2.6.6 kernel and check the following command:

grep EXT3 .config