[nmglug] Kernel - devfs - initrd

[Gary Sandine]

Hi,

On Mon, 2006-07-17 at 16:20 -0600, Jason Davis wrote:
> I have a dual cpu Amd64 box. It running Debian stable. However the
> install did not set up a SMP kernel so only one of my CPUs is showing
> up. I compiled a kernel and built ext3 and the sata drivers in. (not
> modules)
> 
> If i try to not use a initrd image the root file system cant be mounted.
> Can some suggest what Im leaving out. If i use an initrd i get a kernel
> panic saying the dev/console can not be loadded.
> 
> I have googled the messages I get. I have tried a few things I found
> (like install udev/devfsd) Still I get the same error.
> 
> Questions:
> 1. Why is /dev/console not being found at boot?

The initrd is incomplete in some way...  How do you generate the initrd?
Does /etc/mkinitrd/mkinitrd.conf have:

MODULES=most

in it?  Why not just install a Debian smp kernel, like:

apt-get install linux-image-2.6-686-smp

? Something like that...  "apt-cache search linux-image"  and look for
smp.

> 2. How can I use udev and not devfs?

Can you do:

apt-get install udev

?  Although I don't know if this is readily available for Debian stable.
IIRC there's a kernel requirement (version at least
2.6.some_version_that_might_not_be_in_Debian_stable).