trouble loading self compiled vanilla kernel

trouble loading self compiled vanilla kernel

[Jonas Svensson]

I have trouble booting a kernel I have compiled myself. I have changed
from FedoraCore 2 to CentOS 4.4 and is trying to compile my own kernel. In
FC2 I were able to compile and boot a custom kernel and this system boots
fine with the kernel supplied by CentOS. I want to compile my own to get
support for second head on Matrox G400DH (for tv out) and Hauppauge PVR150
(tv in). I downloaded kernel 2.6.19.1 from kernel.org and compiled it like
make mrproper, make menuconfig, make, make modules_install, make install.
I also tried doing make oldconfig using config from kernel supplied with
centos, also make default config and a kernel without modules support. I
even reinstalled CentOS 4.4 tried compiling the kernel first thing, to
make sure I did not mess up anything with alternative packages before.

All results in the same problem: the booting stops about when grub is
finished and the kernel should continue. I get the
message about loading initrd but not the line of "Uncompressing
Linux... Ok, booting the kernel". Instead I get a blank screen with a
flashing cursor at top left. Thats all, nothing more happens. Any
suggestions on what could be wrong or what I should do?

Hardware: Asus P3B-F (motherboard), Celeron 1.1GHz, Matrox G400DH and so
on.

Please keep the CC: jonass@lysator.liu.se

Re: trouble loading self compiled vanilla kernel

[Tilman Schmidt]

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Jonas Svensson schrieb:
> I downloaded kernel 2.6.19.1 from kernel.org and compiled it like
> make mrproper, make menuconfig, make, make modules_install, make install.
[...]
> All results in the same problem: the booting stops about when grub is
> finished and the kernel should continue. I get the
> message about loading initrd but not the line of "Uncompressing
> Linux... Ok, booting the kernel". Instead I get a blank screen with a
> flashing cursor at top left. Thats all, nothing more happens. Any
> suggestions on what could be wrong or what I should do?

Did you build a new initrd to go with your new kernel?

-- 
Tilman Schmidt                    E-Mail: tilman@imap.cc
Bonn, Germany
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Re: trouble loading self compiled vanilla kernel

[Jonas Svensson]

On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Tilman Schmidt wrote:

> Jonas Svensson schrieb:
> > I downloaded kernel 2.6.19.1 from kernel.org and compiled it like
> > make mrproper, make menuconfig, make, make modules_install, make install.
> [...]
> > All results in the same problem: the booting stops about when grub is
> > finished and the kernel should continue. I get the
> > message about loading initrd but not the line of "Uncompressing
> > Linux... Ok, booting the kernel". Instead I get a blank screen with a
> > flashing cursor at top left. Thats all, nothing more happens. Any
> > suggestions on what could be wrong or what I should do?
>
> Did you build a new initrd to go with your new kernel?

I beleive make install does that in CentOS. There were a new initrd
installed and it was not identical to the one supplied by CentOS.

Re: trouble loading self compiled vanilla kernel

[Tilman Schmidt]

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Jonas Svensson schrieb:
> On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Tilman Schmidt wrote:
> 
>> Jonas Svensson schrieb:
>> [...]
>> > All results in the same problem: the booting stops about when grub is
>> > finished and the kernel should continue. I get the
>> > message about loading initrd but not the line of "Uncompressing
>> > Linux... Ok, booting the kernel". Instead I get a blank screen with a
>> > flashing cursor at top left. Thats all, nothing more happens. Any
>> > suggestions on what could be wrong or what I should do?
>>
>> Did you build a new initrd to go with your new kernel?
> 
> I beleive make install does that in CentOS. There were a new initrd
> installed and it was not identical to the one supplied by CentOS.

That's surprising. On SuSE I always have to build it separately
with mkinitrd, and the kernel makefiles are the same, after all.
Anyway, your symptoms definitely look like a bad initrd, so you
may want to have a closer look in that area. Perhaps build a
kernel you can boot without initrd for testing, ie. with the
drivers for the root disk and filesystem built in.

HTH
Tilman

-- 
Tilman Schmidt                    E-Mail: tilman@imap.cc
Bonn, Germany
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Re: trouble loading self compiled vanilla kernel

[Jonas Svensson]

On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Tilman Schmidt wrote:

> Jonas Svensson schrieb:
> > On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Tilman Schmidt wrote:
> >
> >> Jonas Svensson schrieb:
> >> [...]
> >> > All results in the same problem: the booting stops about when grub is
> >> > finished and the kernel should continue. I get the
> >> > message about loading initrd but not the line of "Uncompressing
> >> > Linux... Ok, booting the kernel". Instead I get a blank screen with a
> >> > flashing cursor at top left. Thats all, nothing more happens. Any
> >> > suggestions on what could be wrong or what I should do?
> >>
> >> Did you build a new initrd to go with your new kernel?
> >
> > I beleive make install does that in CentOS. There were a new initrd
> > installed and it was not identical to the one supplied by CentOS.
>
> That's surprising. On SuSE I always have to build it separately
> with mkinitrd, and the kernel makefiles are the same, after all.
> Anyway, your symptoms definitely look like a bad initrd, so you
> may want to have a closer look in that area. Perhaps build a
> kernel you can boot without initrd for testing, ie. with the
> drivers for the root disk and filesystem built in.

I have done a kernel without support for modules and what I beleive is
sane settings regarding drivers. I installed it and removed the initrd
from grub.config but still got the same error.

I will try it again, maybe I missed something. I will also try to read
more on initrd and see if I am wrong to assume that make install does it
for me.

Thanks for trying to help.

Re: trouble loading self compiled vanilla kernel

[Vadim Lobanov]

On Mon, 2007-01-08 at 16:52 +0100, Jonas Svensson wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Tilman Schmidt wrote:
> 
> > Jonas Svensson schrieb:
> > > I beleive make install does that in CentOS. There were a new initrd
> > > installed and it was not identical to the one supplied by CentOS.
> >
> > That's surprising. On SuSE I always have to build it separately
> > with mkinitrd, and the kernel makefiles are the same, after all.
> > Anyway, your symptoms definitely look like a bad initrd, so you
> > may want to have a closer look in that area. Perhaps build a
> > kernel you can boot without initrd for testing, ie. with the
> > drivers for the root disk and filesystem built in.
> 
> I will try it again, maybe I missed something. I will also try to read
> more on initrd and see if I am wrong to assume that make install does it
> for me.

In my experience on openSUSE, the following sequence of commands
installs both the kernel and the initrd:
	make *config*
	make
	make modules_install
	make install
However, if the order of the last two make invocations is switched, then
the initrd does not get generated (correctly or at all). Although
unlikely to be the problem, it's a simple thing to eliminate from the
list of possible borkages.

-- Vadim Lobanov

Re: trouble loading self compiled vanilla kernel

[Tilman Schmidt]

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Am 08.01.2007 18:40 schrieb Vadim Lobanov:
> In my experience on openSUSE, the following sequence of commands
> installs both the kernel and the initrd:
> 	make *config*
> 	make
> 	make modules_install
> 	make install
> However, if the order of the last two make invocations is switched, then
> the initrd does not get generated (correctly or at all).

Cool! So that explains why it never worked for me. I always ran
"make install" before "make modules_install". It just appeared
more logical.

Thanks a lot for that hint - I'll try it on the next occasion.

-- 
Tilman Schmidt                          E-Mail: tilman@imap.cc
Bonn, Germany
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Re: trouble loading self compiled vanilla kernel

[Jonas Svensson]

On 8 Jan 2007 at 9:40, Vadim Lobanov wrote:

> In my experience on openSUSE, the following sequence of commands
> installs both the kernel and the initrd:
> 	make *config*
> 	make
> 	make modules_install
> 	make install
> However, if the order of the last two make invocations is switched, then
> the initrd does not get generated (correctly or at all). Although
> unlikely to be the problem, it's a simple thing to eliminate from the
> list of possible borkages.
> 
> -- Vadim Lobanov

Thank you for your advice. It's been a while and I have been some 
testing. I can compile and boot these kernels: 2.6.10, 2.6.16.37 
and 2.6.17.14. But I have not been able to boot any of these: 
2.6.18, 2.6.18.6 nor 2.6.19.1. Guess I will have to read the 
changelog for 2.6.18 really careful.

/Jonas