2.6.8.1 kernel and er... problems

[cutterjohn]

Well, I seem to have finally done myself on a YDL3.0.1 based system plus a self compiled 2.6.8.1 kernel from, erm, ftp.kernel.org IIRC. (BTW this is all on an ibook2 G3/500 dual USB/firewire)

In any event, I have had fairly extensive experience modifying and customizing kernel installations in the x86(and other MIPS/ARM) realm through 2.4.x, however I seem to have wholy thrown a monkey wrench into my YDL setup. This beind said I need to add 2 things, I have NOT really kept up with 2.6.x developments, although I have successfully built and run a benh(CVS) based 2.6.2rc build, and I erm, sort of tried to shortcut by using that config dumped into the 2.6.8.1 configurator.

In general, I mostly stuck with the default options unless I was fairly certain of the required changes which is not likely on a powerpc/mac based build and the newer 2.6.x kernel. In any event I got my nice new spiffy vmlinux/System.map move and named, appropriately into yaboot, edito /etc/yaboot.conf accordingly(all sans initrd/ram disk startup) blindly went ahead and tried the old favorite shutdown/reboot.

Kernel looks like it loads ok, gets to setting up hda, bunch of messages occassionally repeat that hda has lost interrupt, so I hit the good ol' power switch and try a reboot, this time selecting one of the previously working kernels, in this case the 2.6.2-rc benh that I built back in February.

The kernel, appears to load fine, however when the YDL init scripts start running I get presented with a myriad of messages, /proc/mount no such file or directory, /dev/null read only, set hw clock bad file descriptor, etc. and finally an option to ^D to continue normal boot or enter root pw to fix.

^D straight reboot, doesn't seem much like a continue normal boot to me...

and entering root pw is apparently supposed to let me troubleshoot, and therein lies my problem. I am not totally familiar with the YDL/RedHat startup/config and am not really entirely sure what they 2.6.8.1 kernel may have done to really start this all off. BTW I also tried zapping param ram in hopes of a q&d fix to no avail.

Any helpful soul(s) have a q&d fix/explanation while I attempt to piece it together on my own?

(Actually this is a totally new one on me as I have never had problems this bad before experimenting with kernels and building, but then again I am not sure if it non-familiarity with the 2.6.x kernels and new or changed features and what I mnay have inadvertently or otherwise configured to foobar the old init scripts...)

edited: (few min later) Er... actually the benh kernel 2.6.2 was via bitkeeper as I had to register and d/l it to get some relatively fresh source which is also why I used the vanilla source from kernel.org this time. Ppckernel.org sources look a little stale unless I'm missing something and CVS/whatever of large amts of source over dialup is really annoying...

edited: (hour or so later) it would appear that the root cause of the problem is that the null device has been overwritten some how, and I am now(having finally found my install cds) attempting rescue mode and null device recreation which, should, hopefully correct this situation. Of course that still leaves the question of what happened in the first place, back to recompiling the kernel and really looking at the options this time.

edit(seconds later): yep that did the trick, now I wonder if it was not using an initrd + ramdisk or some kernel conf option... back to experimentation I think....