kernel panic after install on my laptop..

upsidaisium · 2007-04-09 01:22:24

so i have a laptop which for the longest time had a really messed up gentoo install on it, so i figured i'd put arch on it since i've had such a good experience with it on my desktop (this machine). the laptop doesn't have a cd drive so i did a floppy/ftp install of 0.7.2, which seemed to work just fine. when i first booted it up, my grub menu entry looked like this:

root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda3 ro vga=773
initrd /initrd26.img

so i tried that, and i got a file not found error because of the initrd line--but no problem, i'll just change it to:

initrd kernel26.img

and all my problems will be solved! right..? no

after also adding "rootfstype=ext3" to the kernel line, and attempting to boot, i get as far as:

:: Initramfs Completed - control passing to kinit
kinit: Cannot open root device dev(0,0)
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

..and i'm stuck for a solution to this problem! i've done some searching around the forums, without turning up much of anything useful. i've also tried using "kernel26-fallback.img", which doesn't seem to make any difference.. it panics at the same spot.

so what on earth have i done wrong??

[edit: and i think there was also a line along the lines of "IP-Config: no devices to configure" before the kernel panic..]

Last edited by upsidaisium (2007-04-09 01:25:27)

STiAT · 2007-04-09 01:37:41

Hello,

Please read this post carefully, misunderstandings often lead in confusion, the major changes are about sda/hda, in your fstab and grub configuration.
Most likely, after a upgrade to 0.8, you will have to perform the following steps:

Modify your /boot/grub/menu.lst

title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /kernel26.img

You also will need to modify your /etc/fstab, changing hda to sda.

Note:
If this fails (change from hda/sda) you still can use load piix as earlymodule in the kernel line. This should just occur on special hardware configurations, most likely intel (pentium 4 and below).

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro earlymodules=piix

After this, you will have to change to hda instead of sda again.

A personal note on this question: It has been asked, discussed and answered about 100 times on the boards. I think with a bit more intensive searching you'd have found answers.

Kind regards,
STi

Last edited by STiAT (2007-04-09 01:42:33)

upsidaisium · 2007-04-12 23:59:20

thanks for your suggestions stiat. it's much appreciated. to be perfectly honest though, the notion of switching instances of "hda" to "sda" didn't make any sense to me--and it didn't seem to work either. here's what got my system to boot: (menu.lst)

root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda3 ro earlymodules=piix
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img

so now i'm not really sure what's going to happen when i do system upgrades... i'm afraid that another update to my kernel could cause problems that i won't be able to fix. but i guess i'll just have to find out whenever it happens

and i'll keep in mind that i should search a bit more thoroughly before creating threads.. i was just frustrated, i suppose..

EDIT: i just did a sysupgrade, and things are working just fine! (now using kernel26.img, not the fallback..)

Last edited by upsidaisium (2007-04-13 00:44:48)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-04-09 01:22:24

kernel panic after install on my laptop..

#2 2007-04-09 01:37:41

Re: kernel panic after install on my laptop..

#3 2007-04-12 23:59:20

Re: kernel panic after install on my laptop..

Board footer