On 2013-07-01, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckin...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 01/07/2013 23:52, Grant Edwards wrote: >> I've just recently run into a problem where sometimes when a machine >> boots, the kernel can't find init. This appears to be because my grub >> configuration line says "root=/dev/sda5" and _sometimes_ the drive >> that contains my root partition is sdb instead of sda. AFAICT, for the >> past 30 years the linux kernel was 100% consistent in the order that >> hard drives were labelled -- but recently that has seems to have >> changed. >> >> I use partition labels in my fstab, so that's not a problem, but after >> all these years, the kernel still doesn't know how to grok parition >> labels. >> >> Are we really expected now to set up an initrd just so that the kernel >> can find the root partition?? > > Where have you been for the past 6 months? > > Did you miss the entire clusterfuck debate about latest udev tricks?
No. > Those names depend only on the order in which devices are discovered, > and that process has always been indeterminate. Really? I've been running Linux on a lot of machines for 30 years -- often on machines with a half-dozen hard drives -- and I never saw drive order change from one reboot to the next until today. That's quite a lucky streak. > udev used to get in the middle and rename things in an arbitrary but > defined order, it no longer does this. How did udev get in the middle? It somehow ran before the kernel mounted root and started 'init'? > We discussed this whole subject *to death* over the last many months I remember that discussion, but I don't see how it's relelvent to events that occur before init starts. -- Grant
