Adventures in CRUX

[aluminumspleen]

I downloaded the 2.4 install CD last night, and in lieu of studying for my French final, I decided to mess around with it a bit. I followed Dapper Dan's wonderful how-to, and read the official how-to handbook on the CRUX website. I went through everything, and it all seemed like it was going great. Then, right after the kernel compiled, BAM, screen goes black. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I may have activated the wrong video drivers? It's OK though, I saw a bunch of things flash by during the compilation (bluetooth, wireless) that I don't need for my desktop, so I'm going to go try to reinstall/recompile the kernel. Can I recompile the kernel without reinstalling? or do I have to start from square one? I'll probably just start over, I sure did get one hell of a sense of excitement seeing all that stuff fly by on the screen. Round two after dinner!

[jayd512]

Glad to hear that you're taking the plunge!
Yes, you can re-compile without re-installing. Simply execute

cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.23.9
make menuconfig

Make sure to take your time, and use the 'Help' feature if you're unsure about anything.
Then

make all && make modules_install

Followed by

cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz
cp System.map /boot

Fresh compile ready to go! During the first install or two, I didn't really worry about backing up the older kernel compile. But after getting a running system, you'll want to make that back-up just in case something goes wrong with the newer one.

P.S.

I sure did get one hell of a sense of excitement seeing all that stuff fly by on the screen.

I know the feeling!

[aluminumspleen]

So, with finals at school and the holidays right afterwards, I've been hard pressed to work at all on my computer. Finally with some time today, I decided to try recompiling the kernel (still in 2.4). Everything appeared to work (I don't know much about the compilation messages, but at the end of it all, I was presented with a terminal). I rebooted, edited by grub menu, and restarted. Kernel Panic! Now, I've heard this term thrown around, but I'm not quite sure what exactly it means. Here's the last two lines after I reboot:

"Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)"

Seeing the "root=" thing, I went back to the grub/menu.lst and added "root=/dev/sda3" (my root's on sda3) to the end of the boot parameter, but same thing. Here's my menu.lst:

title CRUX 2.4
root (hd0,2)
boot (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3

Ideas? Did the compilation go askew? Am I editing the menu.lst incorrectly? Any input would be appreciated! Now to let my eyes rest before drinking 3 bottles of sparkling cider...

Happy New Year, by the way!

[jayd512]

I went through the same issue with 2.5 last week.

title CRUX 2.4
root (hd0,2)
boot (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3

Try changing the boot parameter to root=/dev/hda3
Also, are the drivers for your hard drives built-in to the kernel properly? Or are they modules? Meaning, if you execute make menuconfig and make sure that your type of drives (SATA, SCSI...) have a (*) beside them, instead of an (M).

[aluminumspleen]

hey Jay, thanks for the response. tried hda3, still no luck. I had done sda because my debian partition referred to them as sda's instead of hda's. I thought I had included SATA support. Since I can't run make menuconfig from my CRUX (as there is none to be had yet), can I "chroot" in from my debian partition? The kernel configuration is quite confusing. Do you know off hand whether there's documentation on the CRUX website about the kernel configuration? Its alright if you don't know, I'm probably gonna go searching for it anyways. Thanks!

[jayd512]

Here's the link for the 2.4 Handbook: CRUX | Main / Handbook2-4
But there's not much there about kernel configuration. You pretty much have to now what hardware you have, in pretty good detail.
But you can still run make menuconfig... Just boot up with your 2.4 CD, and at the boot prompt, execute:

CRUX root=/dev/hda3

It will go into Rescue Mode (even though it's not listed as an option)
By the way, what file system are you using? Rieser3, JFS, ext3?
One last thing, when you boot up what do you get from

find /boot/vmlinuz

[Dapper Dan]

Hi aluminumspleen!

By all means, chroot into CRUX from Debian. I chroot from my previous CRUX install into the next. It's a great way to get things edited and accomplished while also having Internet and Google. You can chroot into CRUX and recompile the kernel from Debian. Can you post the exact "kernel panic" error? Might give us a better clue.

On configuring X... Not going to beat around the bush. It can be tough but that's because you are having to do it yourself. The learning process will teach you a lot though which is one of the reasons I like running CRUX. You could chroot into CRUX from Debian and run xorgconfig, using your Degian xorg.conf as a reference. The configuration should be almost exactly the same if both are running the same hardware.

Good luck!

[aluminumspleen]

Hello again! Thanks so much for all the help! It's kind of hard not to get really frustrated with all this, but hey, I'm learning, right?

I tried recompiling the kernel again, this time making sure anything SATA related was <*> and not <M> (both my HD and my dvd drive are SATA). Still got kernel panic.

This is what the error states (what I can see of it):

TCP cubic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Starting balanced_irq
Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
VFS: Cannot open rood device "sda3" or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

I'm not quite sure what "unknown-block(0,0)" is. Also, should the partition have a boot flag? I thought maybe, but when I change it, it removes the flag from sda1, which is the partition that has GRUB installed on it.

I'm using an EXT3 filesystem type, because I guess it's just what I'm familiar with (I'm not versed in the differences/advantages of different filesystems).

When I ran "find /boot/vmlinuz", it spat back out "/boot/vmlinuz", which I'm pretty sure means it's there.

Also, a bunch of text flies by on the screen before the Kernel Panic error pops up, so I'm pretty positive the kernel is there and (?)compiled(?). I don't know, I'm missing something, apparently.

Ideas? Thoughts? I'm going to mess around probably for a little bit longer, then turn in. Talk to you all soon!

[aluminumspleen]

hey Dan,
I figure configuring X isn't going to be a walk in the park, but thanks for the extra heads up. I already feel accomplished even though I haven't even gotten into the system yet!

Example: I used to be scared to do anything from the command line (not that I was adverse, I'm just usually a visual person). Then, when I was using the CRUX cd today, and I wanted to access my already installed system, I booted into rescue mode (Thanks Jay!) and went to recompile the kernel...but where'd it go? After a minute or two of thinking, I realized I wasn't in my system (duh) so I quick made a directory, mounted the partition, and chrooted in in less than one minute! Two days ago, I didn't know how to use 'mount' or 'chroot', and now look!

Learning is fun.

[aluminumspleen]

HOLY FREAKIN CRAP YEAH!!!!

sorry, had to get that out, but I "effin" figured it out! someone on this link:
kernel panic - unable to mount root fs - Linux Archive
said that to get SATA support, you also needed SCSI support (not obvious to me). I changed the makeconfig, recompiled, copied the stuff and VOILA!

CRUX!

Now I can sleep in peace! (ahhh, awesome).

Tomorrow (or the next day), I begin the next quest...Xorg!
Until then...