[TriLUG] Problem with Debian Etch

[Steven Blanchard]

On 5/28/06, Nick <trilug at dogstar1.com> wrote:
> Steven Blanchard wrote:
>
> > On 5/27/06, Nick <trilug at dogstar1.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hey everyone, I have been having a problem with Etch and was wondering
> >> if anyone else has run into this issue?
> >>
> >> After updating the initial install, the boot process hangs at "Begin:
> >> waiting for root file system"
> >>
> >> I have repeated the install twice with the same results. Upon searching
> >> for answers the only thing I found is the following:
> >>
> >>         I edited the file "/etc/kernel-img.conf" to add the line:
> >>         ramdisk = /usr/sbin/mkinitrd.yaird
> >>         And then regenerated the initrd image.
> >>         dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-2.6.16-1-amd64-8-smp
> >>         And I could boot. It seems this is an error while creating
> >>         the initrd image.
> >>
> >> As this situation stretches my limited abilities I tried following these
> >> directions (dubious as they look to me) by using Knoppix but I was
> >> unsuccessful.
> >>
> >> Any feedback would be appreciated.
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >>
> >> Nick
> >>
> >
> > Does your computer have SATA?  I ran into similar problems at work
> > with a machine.  The problem was that under sarge's kernel the SATA
> > drive showed up as regular IDE (hda). With the newer kernel in etch,
> > SATA shows up as a scsi device (sda).  To boot, I had to update the
> > fstab and grub.conf by hand.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > ~Steven
>
> Thanks but no SATA. I tried this on a different machine with the same
> results. I have the server in question running bare-bones Ubuntu without
> any problems now. However I am still curious about the problem. Perhaps
> it is the testing source I added? This would be the first time testing
> actually caused me any problems though.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Nick


That is strange. The testing kernel might have a quirk with your
particular hardware.  The only other similar problem I have had was an
amd64 running etch.  It would time out waiting for the SCSI drives to
spin up.  The system dropped to a shell with an 'oh crap' message.
Typing 'exit' once the drives came online cause the system to boot
normally.

The kernels in sarge and sid boot fine on the same machine.  Other
filesystem problems can occur if your initrd does not have the correct
modules for the hardware and filesystem, however this rarely happens
these days.

Cheers,
Steven