Re: Linux (RedHat) version number question

From: Lenard (lenard_at_127.0.0.1)
Date: 03/12/04 

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 21:00:46 GMT

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 11:30:56 -0800, Patrick Flaherty wrote:

> Hmm. Tried all the steps and the appropriate entry in grub.config looks
> as follows:
>
> title Red Hat Linux (2.4.25)
> root (hd0,0)
> kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.25 ro root=LABEL=/ initrd /initrd-2.42.5.img
>
> I look and I find that all three of the following are in /boot and
> appear to be 'reasonable' sizes etc:
>
> intrd-2.42.5.img
> System.map-2.4.25
> vmlinuz.2.4.25
>
> However at boot-time (selecting 2.42.5 from the blue Grub screen) I get
> a bunch of messages (that look OK) then it hangs with these last three
> message:
>
> * VFS: cannot open root device "LABEL=/" or 00:00 * Please append a
> correct "root=" boot option * Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs
> from 00:00
>
> Maybe I need to look more at
>
> make menuconfig

Nope, what's happening is Red Hat modifies the kernel source that adds in
and configures partition label support which is not in the kernel.org
source tree. Not a big deal, all you need to do is not use the 'LABEL=/'
and use the device/drive_partition where root resides instead. Read the
commented top section of your /boot/grub/grub.conf file for the clue to
this, example below (from my laptop);

# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3

So instead of 'root=LABEL=/' I use 'root=dev/hda3' for all the Linux
kernel boot options. I also modified the /etc/fstab not to the labels
either(example from my laptop again);

(LABEL root) == /dev/hda3
(LABEL boot) == /dev/hda1
(LABEL home) == /dev/hda2
(LABEL tmp) == /dev/hda5
(LABEL swap) == /dev/hda6

Boot your system with the Red Hat supplied kernel and find out the
substitution table for your system, use GNOME DiskFree or KDiskFree to get
this information if you need to. 

-- 
Posted under the XFree86 v.1.0 license
Copyright remains with the author

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