On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Stephen Powell <[email protected]> wrote: > OK, I'm sure it must be something simple, but I can't figure out what. > > I am running the "testing" release (Squeeze). > I have two stock Debian kernels installed on my system: > linux-image-2.6.32-3-686 and linux-image-2.6.32-5-686. > My computer has a single hard disk, a traditional ATA IDE drive, > also known as "PATA". One important difference between these > two kernels is that the -3 kernel uses the old IDE drivers, > which results in my hard disk device name being /dev/hda. > The -5 kernel uses the newer libata driver, which results in > my hard disk device name being /dev/sda. In other words, > the newer kernel uses a SCSI device naming convention instead of > the traditional IDE device naming convention. > > When I first installed the 2.6.32-5 kernel, it was from unstable, > but this kernel has since migrated to testing. I didn't like > all the UUID changes that the dependencies of this kernel package > wanted to make and instead changed all my system files (/etc/fstab, > /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume, and /etc/lilo.conf) to use > the new SCSI device naming conventions. After some initial > issues with the nouveau driver, I have been running the -5 > kernel successfully for some time. > > Recently, however, for the purpose of testing some software, > I decided I wanted to boot my old kernel (the -3 kernel). > I knew that I would have to make some changes to the system > files first, however. I decided to make use of udev aliases > in these system files. For example, in /etc/fstab, instead of > something like > > /dev/sda1 > > I used something like > > /dev/disk/by-uuid/04db5929-51e6-424a-ac5b-a592b96b9d04 > > After making changes of this nature to /etc/lilo.conf, /etc/fstab, > and /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume, I rebuilt the initial > RAM file systems for both kernels with "update-initramfs -uk all" > while running the -5 kernel. Everything appeared to work fine. > I then shutdown and rebooted my current kernel (the -5 kernel). > It booted just fine. I then tried to boot my old kernel (the -3 > kernel). It failed. The kernel and initial RAM file system > were loaded just fine by the boot loader, but the -3 kernel > couldn't make the switch between the initial RAM file system and > the permanent root file system. I got a few "device not found" > error messages and it left me in an ash shell with "(initramfs)" > as the boot prompt. > > What did I do wrong? Is there a system file that I missed? > Is this a missed dependency in the dependency-based boot system? > I can still boot the -5 kernel just fine, but I can't get the > -3 kernel to boot. I tried searching the internet with the > search words > > Debian 2.6.32-3 2.6.32-5 "(initramfs)" "won't boot" > > but none of the hits looked promising to me. > > Any ideas? My hunch is that the udev aliases might not yet > exist at the time they are being referenced. But that's just > a wild guess at this point. The thing is though, it works fine > for the -5 kernel.
IIUC, linux-image-2.6.32-3-686 uses hdX and linux-image-2.6.32-5-686 uses sdX so wouldn't your update-initramfs have updated your linux-image-2.6.32-3-686 initrd with sdX device names? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
