Unable to load kernel

jcb · 2007-11-18 13:05:19

Hey all,

First of all, great distribution!

Im moving my home server from Gentoo to this and Im impressed by it simplicity, which Gentoo lost long time ago.

My home server got 2 disk controllers; 1 onboard and 1 Promise SATA 300 TX4 with 4 disks attached to each.

Here comes my problem: The kernel wont load when there is disks attached to the Promise controller.

So I made sure the first disk on the onboard controller (with the OS) is the first disk in the BIOS boot priority list.

Then I made a custom kernel following http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ker … rom_Source, where the driver for the onboard controller is embedded in the kernel, since the Promise module was loaded fist and its disks got recognized by the kernel first and got named sda, sdb, sdc and sdd, instead of the disks on the onboard controller being named first with sda, sdb, sdc and sdd (they got named sde, sdf, sdg and sdh).

So now the disks on the onboard controller is recognized first, but it still doesnt load the kernel when disks on the Promise controller is attached.

Then I went back and started Gentoo, since the kernel loads fine there. I copied the .config from the kernel I used in Gentoo and made a new kernel for Archlinux again.
This custom kernel also wont be loaded.

I dont know what to do and I dont want to keep using Gentoo :-(

It smells like a problem with grub to me, but I have no idea what it can be.

This is what it print as the last sign of life, when I select a kernel in the grub menu:

root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type is 0x83
kernel /vmlinuz26-JSM root=/dev/sda2 ro
[Linux-bzImage, setup=0x2a00, size=0x2d7458]

ls -l /boot

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 809207 2007-10-27 11:05 System.map26
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1049286 2007-11-18 14:08 System.map26-JSM
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 2007-11-18 13:31 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 75577 2007-11-03 13:19 kconfig26
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 67225 2007-11-18 14:08 kconfig26-JSM
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4639514 2007-11-03 13:19 kernel26-fallback.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2442499 2007-11-03 13:19 kernel26.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1820568 2007-10-27 11:05 vmlinuz26
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2990168 2007-11-18 14:08 vmlinuz26-JSM

cat /etc/fstab:

none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
/dev/dvd /mnt/dvd udf ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
/dev/sda2 / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0

ls -l /lib/modules:

drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 2007-11-04 12:45 2.6.23-ARCH
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2007-11-18 14:12 2.6.23.8-JSM

Here is my menu.lst:

timeout 5
default 0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img
# (2) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux JSM
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26-JSM root=/dev/sda2 ro

Here is my PKGBUILD:

pkgname=kernel26-JSM
basekernel=2.6.23
pkgver=2.6.23
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="The Linux Kernel and modules"
arch=('i686')
url="http://www.kernel.org"
depends=('module-init-tools')
provides=(kernel26)
install=kernel26.install
build() {
# build!
cd ..
_kernver="${basekernel}${CONFIG_LOCALVERSION}"
make || return 1
mkdir -p $startdir/pkg/{lib/modules,boot}
make INSTALL_MOD_PATH=$startdir/pkg modules_install || return 1
cp System.map $startdir/pkg/boot/System.map26-JSM
cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage $startdir/pkg/boot/vmlinuz26-JSM
install -D -m644 .config $startdir/pkg/boot/kconfig26-JSM
# set correct depmod command for install
sed -i -e "s/KERNEL_VERSION=.*/KERNEL_VERSION=${_kernver}/g" $startdir/kernel26.install
}

Here is my kernel26.install:

post_install () {
echo ">>> Updating module dependencies. Please wait ..."
KERNEL_VERSION=2.6.23
/sbin/depmod -A -v $KERNEL_VERSION > /dev/null 2>&1
}
post_upgrade() {
echo ">>> Updating module dependencies. Please wait ..."
KERNEL_VERSION=2.6.23
/sbin/depmod -A -v $KERNEL_VERSION > /dev/null 2>&1
}
op=$1
shift
$op $*

Last edited by jcb (2007-11-19 15:08:20)

byte · 2007-11-18 13:42:05

Doesn't it load the kernel (OOPS'es or whatever), or does it not find the root device and yells about init?

jcb · 2007-11-18 13:52:38

I've just updated the initial post with 4 new quotes (the 4 first ones).

Please check them out. If you ment something else, please let me know!

Last edited by jcb (2007-11-18 13:58:51)

jcb · 2007-11-19 15:12:02

I really stuck here, so I can use all clues and ideas

evdvelde · 2007-11-19 16:39:23

Did you already try to work with an initrd? In my experience, that solves many problems on modern systems.

jcb · 2007-11-20 01:54:56

Yes, that didnt do anything for me.

sacamano_m82 · 2007-11-20 19:59:28

Append 'debug' to your kernel entry in the grub menu - maybe you can get an idea about where exactly it goes wrong.

jcb · 2007-11-21 22:33:16

I just found out that the module included by enabling "BIOS Enhanced Disk Drive calls determine boot disk" in the kernel setup is causing the problem.

As someone wrote in another forum...

One may wonder why is it enabled in default distro kernel anyway. Here a note
from kernel config:

"This option is experimental and is known to fail to boot on some obscure configurations. Most disk controller BIOS vendors do not yet implement this feature."

It would be great if this was removed from the default kernel unless there is a reason for it to be there?

Arch Linux

#1 2007-11-18 13:05:19

Unable to load kernel

#2 2007-11-18 13:42:05

Re: Unable to load kernel

#3 2007-11-18 13:52:38

Re: Unable to load kernel

#4 2007-11-19 15:12:02

Re: Unable to load kernel

#5 2007-11-19 16:39:23

Re: Unable to load kernel

#6 2007-11-20 01:54:56

Re: Unable to load kernel

#7 2007-11-20 19:59:28

Re: Unable to load kernel

#8 2007-11-21 22:33:16

Re: Unable to load kernel

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