Help compiling Custom V3 Kernel (Slack 14.1)

[FreeStream]

Hi Guys,

Hit a brick wall over the last three days. I'm working through this guide: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_unRAID_5.0_on_a_full_Slackware_Distro. I'm down to the 'Modify the unRAID kernel config' part.

I've run 'make localyesconfig' and every combination I can think of with no success.

Here are my:

.config
lspci
dmesg
lsmod

I however keep getting the following error:

Disk is a Crucial M4 on the SATA 6gbps port on my Asus P8B WS.

The UnRAID kernel and the default 14.1 kernel boot perfectly, so I'm missing something.

Can someone who knows what they are doing more-so-than me, work out what is wrong and then explain?

Thanks!!!

 

[SKILL]

Not got time to look fully at the moment but that error is 'simply' not being able to mount the rootfs (which appears to be the second partition on the SSD), this is generally either due to not having the filesystem support or not having the block device/controller support.

From what I can tell from dmesg you're running EXT4 on that partition, which is enabled but not all aspects. Also on the controller side the CONFIG_ATA_PIIX support should work for your board but there's a few potential alternatives.

Basically go through and double check bits to do with the drive/filesystem, if you've got the old .config then comparing them would be good (if not then on the running system check if /proc/config.gz is present). Could also fall back on the good old 'enable all the things' method of debugging

 

[SKILL]

Ah, kernel command line is a good shout actually, looking at that again it's detecting sda1 and sdb1, 2 and 3. Your dmesg shows the SSD being sda (and roots sda2) but now it appears to be sdb, so if your command line has something like "root=/dev/sda2" then it needs changing to "root=/dev/sdb2"

What sda is though I'm not sure, do you have a usb stick inserted? although kinda odd for that to take precedence over the ssd.

 

[FreeStream]

They explicitly say not to do that Try again, make sure you don't wipe their .config file. I would do a diff between what you enable and what was there before (copy it off .config first) and then see what you've actually enabled in `make menuconfig`

Like SKILL said that's just rootfs not syncing, are you sure your kernel cmd line is correct - unknown block sounds weird to me? Looks like there is sd{a,b} drives, are you sure the install is not on of those?

What I meant by that comment is I've tried running the command and not. Starting with virgin unraid .config every time.

The LILO file I'm using is an exact copy of the one that boots exempt that the backup entry is directly pointed at the slackware installed kernal. See the earlier steps in that guide.

Ah, kernel command line is a good shout actually, looking at that again it's detecting sda1 and sdb1, 2 and 3. Your dmesg shows the SSD being sda (and roots sda2) but now it appears to be sdb, so if your command line has something like "root=/dev/sda2" then it needs changing to "root=/dev/sdb2"

What sda is though I'm not sure, do you have a usb stick inserted? although kinda odd for that to take precedence over the ssd.

I don't at the moment, only the DVD drive is plugged in!

tbh you should be using UUIDs instead of kernel disknames. I've seen USB sticks take precedence over AHCI controllers before, it's fairly common.

offtopic:
This seems like a nice little NAS, although why do you have a 7950 in there? What board are you using? lots of sata on there!

I will be switching to UUIDs and GRUb once I crack this problem.

It is a Asus P8B WS for ECC support and 8+2 VRMs.

I use it for my backup/plex server NAS, I've currently got the crypto currency bug hence the 7950!

 

[SKILL]

Different kernels could well enumerate in a different order, have you tried changing the root value in the lilo.conf file, I'm assuming the existing entry is "root = /dev/sda2" for both options?

Grub post-0.97 is just a pain, long live menu.lst

Nothing beats u-boot though...

 

[SKILL]

I was being a bit tongue in cheek, most of my work with bootloaders is on embedded ARM platforms so u-boot is the norm, never seen anyone even try to use grub/lilo on one