root on removable drive

sorry for that mangled formatting and HTML attachment. Haven't used
gmail's webmail for a while and forgot to enable what I call
"standards compliance mode"

Hmm, gpg also doesn't work so well for copy/paste. Darn textbox
mangling my CR into CR/LF and such

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On Mon, Jan 01, 2007 at 05:00:12PM -0500, draeath wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> I'm trying to migrate to debian for the upcoming Etch release. I'm
> currently using Ubuntu.
>
> The only thing holding me back is the kernel will panic as / is absent.
> My partition layout:
>
> /dev/hda ( internal HD )
> /dev/hda1 NTFS ( windows )
> /dev/hda2 EXT3 ( /boot )
> /dev/hda3 linux-swap
>
> /dev/sda ( external HD, USB 2.0 (UHCI) )
> /dev/sda1 EXT3( / )
> /dev/sda2 extended
> /dev/sda5 FAT32 ( shared space for moving files with drive )
>
>
> In ubuntu, it works fine (and I can use UUIDs no less!).
>
> I've tried using this:
> root=UUID=f7b53c4d-6f56-4e99-94fb-ae66d975f167
>
> and also this:
> root=/dev/sda1
>
> Both fail. Is this due to the kernel version? Ubuntu is running
> 2.6.17-10
Hi draeath,
my understanding is that there are difference between ubuntu and debian
in terms of how they setup and patch their kernel, not necessarily
related to kernel version. Ubuntu may include usb functionality (or just
maybe earlier) to allow an external usb drive to be used for root.
Cheers,
Kev
Ps. you may want to use the ubuntu kernel with a debian system but I'm
not sure as to the full effect of this.``
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On Mon, Jan 01, 2007 at 05:00:12PM -0500, draeath wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> I'm trying to migrate to debian for the upcoming Etch release. I'm
> currently using Ubuntu.
>
> The only thing holding me back is the kernel will panic as / is absent.
> My partition layout:
>
> /dev/hda ( internal HD )
> /dev/hda1 NTFS ( windows )
> /dev/hda2 EXT3 ( /boot )
> /dev/hda3 linux-swap
>
> /dev/sda ( external HD, USB 2.0 (UHCI) )
> /dev/sda1 EXT3( / )
> /dev/sda2 extended
> /dev/sda5 FAT32 ( shared space for moving files with drive )
>
>
> In ubuntu, it works fine (and I can use UUIDs no less!).
>
> I've tried using this:
> root=UUID=f7b53c4d-6f56-4e99-94fb-ae66d975f167
>
> and also this:
> root=/dev/sda1
>
> Both fail. Is this due to the kernel version? Ubuntu is running
> 2.6.17-10
>
>
> Any suggestions? I REQUIRE / to be on the external drive.
have you verified that the modules for usb disks are on the initramfs?
(for initramfs-tools, they should be in /etc/initramfs-tools/modules,
for yaird you will have to take a look yourself):
sd_mod
scsi_mod
ehci-hcd
uhci-hcd
usb-storage

to check which modules are actually on the initramfs, do a
zcat /boot/initrd.img-`uname -r`|cpio -t|grep modules
(if you are running a different kernel version then the target, insert
the correct version, of course)

another possibility would also be to increase the timeout how long the
init script waits for the root disk, though i don't know the parameter
atm...

i hope the helps...

yours
albert
--
Albert Dengg

Thanks guys! Albert took care of me!

--

draeath wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> I'm trying to migrate to debian for the upcoming Etch release. I'm
> currently using Ubuntu.
>
> The only thing holding me back is the kernel will panic as / is absent.
> My partition layout:
>
> /dev/hda ( internal HD )
> /dev/hda1 NTFS ( windows )
> /dev/hda2 EXT3 ( /boot )
> /dev/hda3 linux-swap
>
> /dev/sda ( external HD, USB 2.0 (UHCI) )
> /dev/sda1 EXT3( / )
> /dev/sda2 extended
> /dev/sda5 FAT32 ( shared space for moving files with drive )
>
>
> In ubuntu, it works fine (and I can use UUIDs no less!).
>
> I've tried using this:
> root=UUID=f7b53c4d-6f56-4e99-94fb-ae66d975f167
>
> and also this:
> root=/dev/sda1
>
> Both fail. Is this due to the kernel version? Ubuntu is running
> 2.6.17-10
>
>
> Any suggestions? I REQUIRE / to be on the external drive.

Absolutely. Got the same problem here. I can install on a USB drive by
copying/rsync'ing from a PATA drive, but I cannot directly install to there.

Is the problem yaird? That is what I use: mkinitrd.yaird. Yaird seems to
need a running kernel to do its job.

So I cannot upgrade to a different kernel version from USB either, you
get the same failures on the newer version, either the modules are wrong
or the kernel panics.

Hugo

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