[pocket-linux] Chapter 2 Root Disk Problem

[David Horton]

Roman Levandovsky wrote:
>  
> Hello Pocket Linux Gurus,
>  
> I have been trying to get Chapter 2 to work for about 5 days now, and 
> finally succeeded in doing so today.
>  
> The problem was with the root disk, even though I have compiled the 
> Kernel properly and had the right things configured in it I would get 
> the Kernel Panic message telling me to specify init= parameter in order 
> to boot the file system.
>  
> After a lot of digging I found the boot and root disk images on your web 
> site. I then used your root disk with my kernel and everything worked 
> properly, so that lead me to believe that my root disk was the problem.
>  
> I tried compiling bash with --enable-static-link option but would get 
> the following error:
> 
> In file included from shell.h:41,
> 
> from shell.c:48:
> 
> externs.h:163: conflicting types for `gethostname'
> 
> /usr/include/unistd.h:734: previous declaration of `gethostname'
> 
> externs.h:196: conflicting types for `strncasecmp'
> 
> /usr/include/string.h:277: previous declaration of `strncasecmp'
> 
> make: *** [shell.o] Error 1
> 
> I finally found on one of the posts that this is related to not having 
> *glibc-static-devel* package installed. Once I have obtained the proper 
> rpm for my Mandrake 10 system, I was able to compile bash properly and 
> copy it to the root disk, after that everything went smoothly and I was 
> able to boot into my file system from the root disk.
>  
> I hope this helps others that are trying to get through chapter 2 and 
> are having troubles compiling bash.
> When I was not able to compile bash with --enable-static-link option, I 
> just dropped it and compiled it without it, needless to say that I was 
> not able to boot my file system from the root disk, however, the error 
> is quite obscure to why one would not be able to boot. It was Kernel 
> Panic and the fact that I needed to pass in the init parameter into the 
> kernel, it would be much more useful if it would say your file system is 
> corrupted or something of that nature to make life easier.
>  
>  
> Roman.
>  


Roman,

Thanks for the tips.  Chapters two and three seem to be the toughest 
ones to get through.  It should be down hill after that.

By the way, if you are keeping track of tips and tricks as you go and 
you can put them on a web page I would like to make a link to it from 
the Pocket Linux web site.  It could be very helpful to people.  Let me 
know your thoughts on that.

Dave