First time Kernel build Blues

[Matt Graham]

After a long battle with technology, 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.

That should never happen.  modprobe is part of module-init-tools, which is 
necessary for the base system to work.

> So I decided to bite the bullet and try making a new kernel in hopes of
> restoring the lost modprobe.

Wrong package.  "apt-cache search module-init-tools" should tell you what the 
right thing to reinstall is.

>     I finally edited /grub/menu.lst to add the new kernel, but used the
> most recent image file for the initial ramdisk install phase.

That'd never work, because the modules in the initrd won't match the kernel 
you've compiled.

You don't actually *need* an initrd if you build your kernel properly and you 
don't have / on an LV.  I've never used an initrd on my home boxes and don't 
have mkinitrd on my Gentoo systems.  (mkinitrd is its own package in Gentoo, 
YDistroMV.)  For an initrd-less setup, you need to have all the stuff you 
need to mount / built in to the kernel, [*], not [M].  This typically means 
support for your disk controller, SCSI (or IDE) support, SCSI (or IDE) disk 
support, support for ELF binaries, and support for the filesystem on / .  Add 
softRAID if your / is on a softRAID.  LVM requires a bunch of userspace 
fiddling, which is why my / is on a regular partition instead of an LV.

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

ISTR running into some stupid problems trying to get a vanilla kernel without 
initrd to work with the Ubuntu boot scripts.  This was 1.5 years ago though, 
so they may have changed everything so it'll work better by now.

-- 
   Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.  Inside of a dog
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  My blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress/
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see