First time Kernel build Blues

[Eric Shubert]

Mike Bushroe wrote:
> My copy of Ubuntu was becoming unstable. First it would not read a 
> CD-ROM, then it would not read a USB flash drive. In both cases, it 
> claimed the file system was unknown. So I tried using modprobe to add 
> iso9660 and vfat back into the OS, only to find that modprobe was 
> missing. So I tried to rebuild the dependencies files by using depmode, 
> and that could not find the needed files and folders. And suddenly the 
> printer was no longer accessable.
> 
> So I decided to bite the bullet and try making a new kernel in hopes of 
> restoring the lost modprobe. I found Howto's and used a simple one for 
> building 2.6 kernels. I went to Kernel.Org and downloaded the latest 
> stable Kernel 2.6.32 source. And then after several false starts I was 
> able to get make menuconfig to work. I got pretty lost in many of the 
> options and sub menus, but trimmed out some of the fat getting rid of 
> Ham radio, file systems I have never heard of, wireless functions, and a 
> few other. Then came mkinitrd. There is no mkinitrd. I can not apt-get 
> install mkinitrd. I can not use the Ubuntu main menu download and 
> install to get mkinitrd. I Googled it and saw some refernces to 
> initrd-tools, but the only version I could find was labeld as _only_ for 
> customizing a new LIVE-CD, and it also conflicted with already loaded 
> apps. I found mkinitrd in RPMs, but has no idea how to make use of an 
> RPM file in Ubuntu. I looked for mkinitrd source, and could not find 
> that either. I found one package that I extracted to my ~/Downloads, but 
> it had no configure file, and running make on the included Make_file 
> died quickly with errors. Yet when I looked at /boot, there were 
> initrd-x.y.z-.image files for all the previous versions Ubuntu updates 
> have loaded, so it looked essential.
> 
>     I finally edited /grub/menu.lst to add the new kernel, but used the 
> most recent image file for the initial ramdisk install phase. But the 
> boot failed and I had to fall back to the most recent upgrade performed 
> through Ubuntu.
> 
> 
> Can anbody tell me where I went wrong? How I am supposed to make the 
> initrd-image which appears to be critical?

I believe so. Is it called mkinitramfs in ubuntu? (man mkinitramfs)

> Or does Ubuntu just plain not 
> allow home-rolled kernels?

It might not be trivial.

FWIW, when I come across weirdness such as you describe, the problem is 
sometimes hardware. Have you run memtest on your system recently?

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'