First time Kernel build Blues

[kitepilot at kitepilot.com]

initrd and initramfs are *VERY* different things.
They look very much alike and perform the same function, but they behave and 
are created VERY differently.
initramfs will eventually supersede initrd.
Enrique 

 


Eric Shubert writes: 

> 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' 
> 
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