Re: Where is the boot/config-`uname -r` file?

RR wrote:
Yep, empty! And although I'm new to debian, not really new to Linux as such
and noticing my /boot directory as empty was a big shock to me as
well.

I gathered as much. That was mostly why I said start looking there.

I am not sure how my machine is even booting up and how it's finding
the boot images vmlinuz and initrd etc.

That is part of the bootloader, usually grub these days. Grub locates
the kernel and the initrd from the disk and loads and launches them.
This is the bootloader and before the kernel is started. The kernel
doesn't need anything in /boot itself. It is running from the initrd,
which is rather the entire point. The kernel does need the modules
that it will find under /lib/modules and so if that is missing there
will be problems. But you don't need /boot outside of the bootloader.
And for updating the files there of course.

or whatever is the debian equivalent.

Debian uses whatever Linux uses. The number of patches in the Debian
kernel are rather contained. In fact you are free to use a
self-compiled upstream kernel if you wish. Many people do. Although
personally I like the benefit of using a Debian kernel because then
security upgrades are trivial.

If I look at the ISO image of the installation media, I see that in
/boot directory I see stuff like initrd.gz and sparc64 and
silo.conf. Would it help if I copy this as is into the boot
directory of this machine?

No. Definitely not. Instead find out what the actual problem is on
your machine and fix it. Probably you installed into a separate boot
partition and it isn't getting mounted. That is why it is empty. But
you obviously booted and so it does exist. If you were to cover up
the problem cosmetically and put files you think should go there into
your currently empty /boot then that would simply mask the problem.
Because you certainly are not booting from that empty directory.
Putting files there would create a very confusing situation where it
would appear as if you had files in /boot but were actually booting a
different one elsewhere. You would never be able to upgrade the
kernel because after upgrading you would still be booting your
invisible /boot partition that you are not seeing now.

You said you are a new user so I assume this is a new installation?
How did you get to the current state? Fresh install? A fresh
installation would leave files in /boot so look to see how things have
deviated from the normal and you will have the answer.

yes, It was a fresh install from a DVD .. had a lot of trouble in getting
it to work, as this is installed on a Sun V240 machine on the 2nd Disk and
it kept running into this error about memory, and it turned out (purely
observation) that ONLY when the machine is COMPLETELY shutdown with the
power on the powersupply turned off and then brought back up, it boots up
and I was able to install Debian. If I simply to a "warm boot" with the
restart/shutdown command etc. I get those memory errors (been a few weeks so
can't remember what the errors actually said). I still have that problem at
boot time even after Debian installed so avoid rebooting it. But I
digress....to come back to your point, it's installed on the 2nd drive of a
Sun machine which has Solaris 8 on Disk1. And yes, I would also think a
fresh install would leave files in the /boot directory.

You probably want to subscribe to the debian-sparc mailing list. I am
sure that the people there have hit this problem before. But
personally I have no experience with sparc and so can't help with
those issues. Hopefully others will jump in and provide further help.

So the question is, where did these files go (I didn't touch/delete
anything I swear :)

You know that we have all heard that one many times before. :-)

If you installed to a separate partition then my knowledge from other
architectures says that you will be able to see those partitions in
/proc/partitions.

cat /proc/partitions

And that you should be mounting /boot in /etc/fstab at boot time.
Something like this example from my x86 machine.

/dev/md0 /boot ext2 defaults 0 2

You should check your logs in /var/log/* for any boot time errors
associated with mounting that partition.

and how does this system even boot without those files?

The bootloader loads the files. The kernel being booted doesn't need
them.

I'm too scared to try to reboot this machine right now as if it
doesn't come up, I'm toast...this machine is sitting in a time zone
which is 15 hrs different than where I physically am :(

Be careful then! Good luck!

Bob

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