I tried to upgrade the Linux kernel on my desktop Linux machine the other day to 2.6.7 (the “latest-and-greatest”).
The operative word here being: tried.
I used the menuconfig utility to go through and select (what I thought were) the correct options. And compiling (make && make install) went without a hitch.
The kicker came when I tried to reboot the machine and boot into my shiny new kernel. It wouldn’t boot.
It only got so far when it comes up with the message:UFS: Cannot open root device "303" or unknown-block(3,3) Please append a correct "root=" boot option Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,3)
Uh oh.
Apparently, the problem stems from not building ext2 support (or whatever format your root partition is in) into the kernel (as a ’*’, not a module ‘M’). Even if you do compile ext2 support in as a module, it is never loaded because it needs the module to load it! (headache yet?)
So, I have to make a Linux boot disk and try to boot from it, access my partition, reconfigure the kernel (this time making doubly sure ext2 is selected!), recompile, and reinstall.
The Joys of Linux™
