Linux kernel 2.6 wont boot

raid517 · 08-31-2003, 12:46 PM

Hi I wonder if anyone can help? I would describe myself as a reasonably competant linux user, but am in no way a hacker. However like many people I am extremely curious about the new 2.6 kernel. So I opted to give it a try. I installed the new 2.6 kernel test 4 and was very impressed by the set up. It installed without very many problems at all. As far as I can see I did everything 100% as directed in the install instructions and have not deviated at all. But despite this, my new kernel still won't boot. All I get is a big nasty blank screen. I get into grub and the OS selection, I hit enter and zap, zilch, nothing.... If I wait a couple of minutes I can do ctrl, alt and delete to restart the computer, but that's it.

Here is the steps I took files. They are all as far as I can tell accurate. Since I have 3 partitions on my second disc /hdb1 boot /hdb2 swap and hdb3 /root.

First I downloaded and installed the sources as directed, and then ran the following:

Code:

make menuconfig
make bzImage (no need for make dep any more). 
make modules
make modules_install

Then I did:

Code:

# pwd
    /usr/src/linux-2.6.0-test4
    # mv arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage-2.6.0-test4 
    # mv System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.0-test4 
    # cd /boot
    # rm System.map
    # ln -s System.map-2.6.0-test4 System.map

Then:

Code:

#nano -w grub.conf

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux
root (hd0,0) 
kernel (hd1,0)/bzImage-2.6.0-test4  root=/dev/hdb3

Then

Code:

fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
# $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo-src/rc-scripts/etc/fstab,v 1.12 2003/03/11 02:50:53 azarah Exp $
#
# noatime turns of atimes for increased performance (atimes normally aren't
# needed; notail increases performance of ReiserFS (at the expense of storage
# efficiency).  It's safe to drop the noatime options if you want and to
# switch between notail and tail freely.

# <fs>          	<mountpoint>    <type>  	<opts>      		<dump/pass>

# NOTE: If your BOOT partition is ReiserFS, add the notail option to opts.
/dev/discs/disc1/part1	/boot		ext3		noauto,noatime		1 1
/dev/discs/disc1/part3	/		ext3		noatime			0 0
/dev/discs/disc1/part2	none		swap		sw			0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0	/mnt/cdrom	iso9660		noauto,ro		0 0

# NOTE: The next line is critical for boot!
none			/proc		proc		defaults		0 0

# glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for
# POSIX shared memory (shm_open, shm_unlink).
# (tmpfs is a dynamically expandable/shrinkable ramdisk, and will
#  use almost no memory if not populated with files)
# Adding the following line to /etc/fstab should take care of this:

none			/dev/shm	tmpfs		defaults		0 0

So as you can probably see that at least eliminates all of the standard causes.

So if anyone has any ideas or suggestions at all, or might have some small hunts on how this might be resolved, please, please let me know. The future is the 2.6 kernel - and if it doesn't work on my system as far as staying with Linux goes (which is what I very much want to do) I'm pretty much screwed.

If this is a kernel bug, who exactly do I report it to?

Thanks in advance.

Q

DrOzz · 08-31-2003, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by raid517

Code:

make menuconfig
make bzImage (no need for make dep any more). 
make modules
make modules_install

i just noticed this part and i really didn't read much of the rest of your post, because i am wondering are these all the steps you took??
if so, i suggest you look at this

raid517 · 08-31-2003, 01:04 PM

Ok I'll try that. I'm not sure how much difference it will make, since I followed this guide on KernelTrap - and it seems to work for most people. I have also compiled many kernels in the past this way (although I had to run make dep then too) and on the whole they all worked. The way descibed in that thread is just a tad longer, but I'll try anyway I guess...

Thanks for the input.

Q

lyle_s · 08-31-2003, 01:16 PM

http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/post-halloween-2.5.txt says you must have:

CONFIG_INPUT=y
CONFIG_VT=y
CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_VT_CONSOLE=y

in you .config. There's one thing to check.

Lyle

footfrisbee · 08-31-2003, 01:21 PM

The only thing that I can think of is did you remember to include devfs support?

raid517 · 08-31-2003, 01:44 PM

Yes that is needed for Gentoo, which is what I am using.

Q

footfrisbee · 08-31-2003, 02:18 PM

Yeah, I figured as much, but it was worth a shot. How about vesafb support?

raid517 · 08-31-2003, 03:08 PM

Say again? How would that look? I mean where?

Q

PS... Just in case this does turn out to be a kernel bug, how do I report bugs to the linux kernel developers? Also, where can I see a log of what happend at the first attempted boot? I know it wouldn't be very long, but it might say something...

Q

footfrisbee · 08-31-2003, 03:18 PM

In the menuconfig, go to "Graphics Support", select "Support for frame buffer devices", and select "VESA VGA graphics support". If this is not selected, then the boot splash won't work. Maybe that's what happened?

As for reporting bugs, check out this page[kernel.org].

raid517 · 08-31-2003, 03:27 PM

Well this is what I've got:

Code:

CONFIG_FB=y
# CONFIG_FB_CIRRUS is not set
# CONFIG_FB_PM2 is not set
# CONFIG_FB_CYBER2000 is not set
# CONFIG_FB_IMSTT is not set
# CONFIG_FB_VGA16 is not set
CONFIG_FB_VESA=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT=y
# CONFIG_FB_HGA is not set
# CONFIG_FB_RIVA is not set
# CONFIG_FB_MATROX is not set
CONFIG_FB_RADEON=m
# CONFIG_FB_ATY128 is not set
# CONFIG_FB_ATY is not set
# CONFIG_FB_SIS is not set
# CONFIG_FB_NEOMAGIC is not set
# CONFIG_FB_3DFX is not set
# CONFIG_FB_VOODOO1 is not set
# CONFIG_FB_TRIDENT is not set
# CONFIG_FB_PM3 is not set
# CONFIG_FB_VIRTUAL is not set

#
# Console display driver support
#
CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE=y
# CONFIG_MDA_CONSOLE is not set
CONFIG_DUMMY_CONSOLE=y
# CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE is not set

#
# Logo configuration
#
# CONFIG_LOGO is not set

Having said which I'm not altogether sure that nothing is happening. Nornmally if a kernel fails to load you would get some out put, like kernel not found etc, but to get nothing at all is very weird. Anyway thanks, I will check out the bugs page too, unless there's some other section of my config file you think is worth a look, or you can spot something there I can't.

Thanks again.

Q

footfrisbee · 08-31-2003, 03:51 PM

Vesafb looks good. I'm not familiar with the "Console driver display support". I've been pretty hesitant to try the new kernel before a stable version has been released, but I'll give it shot. I'll post my results here.

raid517 · 08-31-2003, 04:00 PM

Thanks... If you have any hints at all it would be cool.

Q

footfrisbee · 08-31-2003, 04:53 PM

Report time: Well, I got it to boot without many problems. A few daemons won't run on that kernel version, and I got weird messages when I tried to load modules.

The first compile round I got the same error as you did. The second time round, I added Framebuffer console support and it booted fine. On a side note, it would be cool if they added dependency checks eventually.

It looks like that might do it for you. Try CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE = y.

raid517 · 09-01-2003, 02:38 AM

Yes that worked thanks.

Anyway as for modules not loading, I had that too. But it looks like some stuff isn't included in this kernel yet, so maybe that's why? Hopefully it will be added back in in time for the final. In the mean time in order to get over this, I opted to install those modules that were causing problems as a part of the kernel and not as modules. Now I have green lights all the way on start up.

In any case, thanks again for the help.

Q

footfrisbee · 09-01-2003, 03:06 PM

Yeah, I've thought about the monolithic kernel, but there's some things that I would like to control how the kernel sees them, e.g. my zip drive and cdrw. Plus I haven't firewire work if you don't load the support as a module.