On 7/13/07, Hendrik Boom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
A few months ago I tried installing gentoo. It mostly succeedes, but I
was unable to boot the new system.
When I boot, it fails as follows:
>> Activating mdev
>> Determining root device
!! Block device /dev/mapper/lovesong-gentoo is not a valid block device
!! The root block device is unspecified or not detected
Please specify a device to boot, or "shell" for a shell
boot() ::
Now I originally installed this system using a chroot from a Debian etch
system. I used genkernel to generate the kernel. As far as I can
remember, I did specified the --lvm option.
Now perhaps the kernel is not OK because I ran genkernel in a chroot
running on a Debian kernel...
Perhaps I chose the wront options...
Perhaps I can fix things by rerunning genkernel with different options...
Or perhaps I need to start all over from a full-fledged gentoo install CD.
Please advise.
-- hendrik
P.S. Soime Gory Details:
hendrik -
My gut reaction is that you should just start over and install from
scratch. I have only installed Gentoo by booting from the Gentoo
install CD in the past, so I'm not familiar with using chroot from a
Debian system. I think the best and most well documented way to do a
Gentoo install is to simply follow the handbook
(http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml).
It is very easy to install Gentoo along with other OS's. You just
need to have a partition or two handy. In my case, when I'm
rebuilding my system from scratch I've always installed Gentoo third
(Windows XP first, openSUSE second, then Gentoo). I use two
partitions for Gentoo, a /boot partition and a / partition, and I use
the swap partition that was created for openSUSE for Gentoo as well.
Then, I don't install grub in Gentoo, I simply add a Gentoo entry to
the grub menu in openSUSE.
I haven't personally used LVM with Gentoo, but I have set up an Ubuntu
Server box with LVM and my experience is that it is best not to bother
with LVM unless you really know you're going to need it. In any case,
the documentation I was following for Ubuntu required at least the
/boot partition be non-LVM for grub to read the kernel off of it, but
this may be due to a lack of knowledge in the workings of grub and
LVM.
--
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