can't boot without "root=..." on kernel cmdline

[almesber en lrc.di.epfl.ch]

Chuck Lever wrote:
> without specifying "root=...", the kernel panics on boot with the message
> "VFS: Cannot open root device 00:80".  i have no idea where it's getting
> major=0, minor=128.  specifying "root=/dev/sda1" on the LILO: cmdline
> allows linux to boot correctly.  also the distributed RedHat kernels boot
> correctly without "root=..."

Is this plain 2.3.39 or did you make any changes to
init/main.c:name_to_kdev_t or to include/linux/kdev_t.h:to_kdev_t ?

First, you should check the output of  lilo -q -v  for the lines that say
Options: "root=801"  or such. If all of them agree on "root=801", it's
init/main.c:name_to_kdev_t that is messing things up.

If one of them says something like "root=80" instead, it's somewhere
between stat(2) and LILO's bsect.c (look for "root=", without the double
quotes), possibly with glibc in the picture too. Let's hope it's
something else ;-)

- Werner

-- 
  _________________________________________________________________________
 / Werner Almesberger, ICA, EPFL, CH       werner.almesberger en ica.epfl.ch /
/_IN_N_032__Tel_+41_21_693_6621__Fax_+41_21_693_6610_____________________/

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