Thanks for the response.  I put some comments below.  I've been out of town
for the past few days so I haven't had a chance to try anything.

Vincent Danen wrote:

> On Thu Aug 30, 2001 at 12:17:21AM -0600, Dan Hensley wrote:
>
> > I'm not a newbie to Linux, but I'm stumped.  I recently used
> > MandrakeUpdate to install the kernel 2.4.7 security update, and it
> > completely screwed up my system.  The first thing it did was not set up
> > the correct links in /boot, so I did that manually by booting a rescue
> > floppy.  Now when I try to boot, I get a kernel panic after a bunch of
> > unresolved symbols dealing with reiserfs (my filesystem).
> >
> > What can I do to get out of this bind?  Any help would be greatly
> > appreciated.
>
> First off, read the security advisory... you're not really supposed to
> use MU for this.  =)

Yeah, I guess I should have left upgrading the kernel until I got back from my
trip, when I wasn't in such a hurry.  I think I'll start compiling the kernel
from source again--RPM's give me nothing but trouble, and this is about the
worst trouble I've been in.

This brings up another question:  Does MandrakeSoft post a list of the patches
it applies to the kernel?

> Second, boot from your rescue floppy/install CD and mount your root
> fs.  You can take the 2.4.3-20mdk from the original 8.0 install and
> re-install it (use rpm -ivh) so it's alongside the other kernel.  Then
> edit /etc/lilo.conf to include it (it should already be in there, but
> just check to make sure).  This should allow you to boot normally into
> your system.

I've been trying to do this, but I haven't had any luck.  I've mounted my root
file system to /mnt/disk, and my /usr file system to /usr.  I put in a
symbolic link between /mnt/disk/var and /var so RPM could find my installation
database.  However, when I try to force the kernel RPM from the original CD,
it fails because /lib is on a ramdisk.  If I try to symlink /mnt/disk/lib to
/lib, the shell gets really confused because the shared objects in /lib are
necessary.  How can I get around this?

I also thought about taking the kernel off of the rescue disk, but then I
realized that I think it pulls the kernel image off of the CD.

My only option may be to compile a kernel that doesn't use modules on a
different machine and copy it via floppy to my problem machine.  Barring that,
do you happen to have a similar kernel image lying around, or is there one on
the installation CD I can copy off?  Doing RPM probably is not going to work.
Ugh.


> I don't know *why* it doesn't work, however.  If you can provide more
> details, that would be ideal.

I'm really hoping I can discover why.  This has left a really sour taste in my
mouth, and I really hope it doesn't happen to anyone else.  But I have to
believe that if it happened to me, it could happen to others.

Dan


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