[Buildroot] Kernel Panic .....

[Bernhard Fischer <rep.nop@aon.at>]

On Wed, Dec 20, 2006 at 09:19:32PM -0800, Joe Pruett wrote:
>On Wed, 20 Dec 2006, Bernhard Fischer wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 11:47:54PM -0500, Robin Mordasiewicz wrote:
>> >On Tue, 19 Dec 2006, Joe Pruett wrote:
>> >> On Tue, 19 Dec 2006, Robin Mordasiewicz wrote:
>> >>> On Tue, 19 Dec 2006, Robin Mordasiewicz wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> I am trying to boot the image as an initrd filesystem over pxe, but I see
>> >>>> an error
>> >>>> 'Unpacking initramfs...<0>Kernel panic - not syncing: bad gzip magic numbers'
>> >>>>
>> >>>> in my pxelinux.cfg/default
>> >>>>
>> >>>> label test
>> >>>>   kernel linux-kernel-2.6.19.1-i386
>> >>>>   append ramdisk_blocksize=4096 initrd=rootfs.i386.ext2 root=/dev/ram0 ramdisk_size=524288
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Is there anything I am required to change to make this kernel and image
>> >>>> work over booting from pxe ?
>> >>>
>> >>> I needed to build some RAM disk drivers into the kernel.
>> >>
>> >> how exactly did you do that?  that is where i have finally gotten after
>> >> making that kernel-patches directory (as you also just posted) and fixing
>> >> the problem that grub no longer has a -19 version at debian.org (-20 seems
>> >> to be working).  i made an iso image and ran into the same kernel panic
>> >> because it seems to want a cpio image.  i have just rebuilt using the
>> >> linux26.config file instead of busybox.config and will be booting in a few
>> >> minutes to see how that goes...
>> >
>> >Not sure if I am following you. I think you may be getting the kernel 
>> >config and the busybox config confused. The documentation for customizing 
>> >busybox does not mention modifying the kernel, but what I did to customize 
>> >the kernel is something like the following.
>> >
>> >cd build_i386/linux-2.6.19.1
>> >cp .config .config.original
>> >make mrproper
>> >make menuconfig
>> >(set the kernel options you require)
>> >cd ../../
>> >make
>> 
>> there is a make linux26-menuconfig target for that (for i386 with
>> the generic x86 target support option turned on, at least).
>> 
>
>ok, i determined that the missing piece is that the ramdisk block device 
>needs to be set to compile in, not be a module.  to make an iso function, 
>i also had to hack in a makefile entry for LINUX_KERNEL (i just set it to 
>LINUX26_KERNEL).  after that things started working.  i also seem to see 
>an ordering problem that if i made a kernel change, i had to run make 
>twice in order for that to get into the iso.

That's inconvenient, yes. The problem i faced (wrt the ordering) is that
it's currently not possible to e.g. maintain a list of
LINUX26_KERNEL_PATCHES that would be populated by package/* and that
would be applied to the kernel(-headers) sources used for toolchain/*.

It resembles a little bit of a chicken and egg problem: Certain stuff
(from the toolchain) have to be known for correct package configuration
while the package-config _may_ impose changes to the toolchain.

I didn't pursue this issue (yet), perhaps somebody else is interrested
in looking at it?
>
>i'm not sure where those two changes should be done officially, or i'd 
>submit a patch.  it seems that if the iso relies on ramdisk support, then 
>it makes sense to have that enabled by default, and the LINUX_KERNEL vs 
>LINUX26_KERNEL make var should be addressed.  

Care to send your patch to outline what could be done to resolve this?
TIA,