Sony Vaio / ISO-1.6.2-beta1 / linux-2.6.22.2

[engelsman]

I installed the Lunar 1.6.2-beta1 ISO on an old Sony Vaio laptop, and configured the 2.6.22.1
kernel using the default configuration. Everything went fine, even though it did take some time.
I've been through man lfirsttime and the lunar update, but saved the update to the 2.6.22.2
kernel as a separate task. First time through I weeded out a lot of the things I didn't think I
would need, but the reboot failed. I've gone back to the 2.6.22.1 kernel and tried to rebuild
the 2.6.22.2 kernel several times using lin -rc linux-2.6 and even explicitly loaded the 2.6.22.1
config but the subsequent reboot into 2.6.22.2 keeps failing with:

[Jason5876]

engelsman,
You are much more familiar with Lunar than I am, but I have been through a similar issue when using my stock precompiled 2.6.21.5 kernel that I keep around with Lunar 1.6.2 beta1. Lunar 1.6.2 calls all IDE devices by a /dev/sdx name, and I have to change that name in /boot/grub/menu.lst as well as fstab to /dev/hdx for all the entries when I use my own kernel with my own configuration. By your error message posted your kernel might be looking for /dev/sdx instead of /dev/hdx. Lunar 1.6.2 puts /dev/sdx in grub (or LiLO, I guess) by default, but other kernels I use identify my IDE devices as /dev/hdx. Your kernel seems to recognize root device 303 and not 803. IIRC, root device 303 refers to /dev/hda3 and root device 803 refers to /dev/sda3. Your kernel cannot locate root device 803 (/dev/sda3). It instead needs to be root device 303 (/dev/hda3) to work with that kernel. The kernel option I think is to disable IDE support in the kernel so it will use the libata drivers instead if we want to use /dev/sdx device names:

CONFIG_IDE=n

provided the ata drivers are included. I could be wrong, and I am sure you are aware of the device naming changes, but I thought I would mention it anyway. Good day.

JW

[engelsman]

Thanks for the vote of confidence Jason, but I'm not a kernel-internals wizard
And, no, I wasn't aware of the device naming changes, but it starts to make sense.

Going back in my notes I see that the old 1.6.1 partitions were /dev/hda* but since the 1.6.2-beta1 installation the partitions are /dev/sda*. Someone else also commented on the provision of a SCSI-line interface for older IDE drives and searching the web gave me the ide-scsi module. That would make sense in this case because I had zapped a whole load of SCSI modules from the kernel configuration and it looks like I killed one too many.

I reinstalled the system again from scratch, selecting the precompiled 2.6.22.1 kernel. Then I did a lunar update and explicitly ran lin linux-2.6 to bring in the 2.6.22.3 kernel, and rebuilt without changing the kernel configuration. The system rebooted into 2.6.22.3 successfully, and I then continued with the rest of man lfirsttime

The current working kernel configuration on the Vaio shows

[Jason5876]

I normally am blindsided by changes and read up on them after the fact. This time I used my trusty old kernel on my Lunar 1.6.2 install and I couldn't boot. That is when I dug around and noticed the devices were /dev/sdx. I had asked on irc about the /dev/sdx situation when my machine was unbootable after I copied over my own kernel, wondering if it was accidental. Sofar explained to me the that it is now libata that supports IDE. Looking around other forums I see that this driver and device naming change for IDE has made for some confusion. It did for me.

[sofar]

CONFIG_IDE is obsolete, please use the drivers under CONFIG_ATA and CONFIG_SATA.

between 2.6.18 and 2.6.20 all kernel ata, ide and sata symbols changed so you have to reconfigure your kernel properly. If you don't know, try using the precompiled kernels on the latest ISO.