Gentoo hangs on "Loading initial ramdisk"

nxe9 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2021 Posts: 80

Hi, I am asking for help again

.

I'm trying to boot with encrypted root. The vfat parition (/boot) is not encrypted and I have grub as boot loader.

The grub window appears, then the console hangs during startup. They are basically two consoles that overlap.

First console:

pietinger · Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2024 7:57 pm Post subject:

Have you tried to make an UKI?

If yes, please read: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1171401.html

If no, we would need to know all your steps you did for this installation.
_________________
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pietinger

nxe9 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2021 Posts: 80

Probably not UKI, unless I'm not fully aware of it and it's happening via the installkernel with the dracut flag behind my back.

I will paste my cheat sheet, which includes almost all the installation steps and is based on the gentoo handbook. It'll probably be easier this way. The listed kernel options are the options that I chose myself.
https://bpa.st/GBXRQ "#" means comment or commands I didn't use. So these lines can be omitted.

Thank you for your help.

pietinger · Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2024 12:16 am Post subject:

nxe9 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2021 Posts: 80

Thank you. Your contribution to documenting everything is great.

I quickly tried to add a few options from your entries, but it did not result in proper booting. The next day I would like to read your entries carefully, but now I am wondering if it is worth it.

I have not dealt with the topic of kernel distribution so far. I thought that it only made compilation and installation easier. However, now I am reading that "Distribution kernels default to a configuration supporting the majority of hardware". To be honest, I always thought that the default kernel configuration was already prepared for most devices and only required light tuning. For years, I used two other systems with a very simple manual configuration based on entries from the Gentoo wiki, and the systems worked without problems and very stably. So I guess I have to revise my views.

In short, if the distribution kernel is better configured by default, it will probably be better if I read the article about the distribution kernel and choose this route.

I will keep you posted on my progress.

sMueggli · Guru Joined: 03 Sep 2022 Posts: 465

What you can do:

1. Make sure that sshd is enabled on the system
2. Boot the system, wait a minute, enter the LUKS passphrase
3. Wait a minute and try to SSH into your machine

If you can SSH into your machine, then you can easily get information about the state of the machine.

If you cannot use SSH, you can ping the machine to see, whether the network part is working or not.

nxe9 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2021 Posts: 80

I tried the dist kernel (sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel-6.6.57). It took a long time to compile, but I can accept it. I know there is gentoo-kernel-bin, but I don't want to limit my configuration possibilities.

The most important information, the system started correctly with the gentoo-kernel configuration. I was able to decrypt the drive and log in.

Thank you again for your very helpful tips.

Hu · Administrator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 22557

nxe9: what is the next step for this thread? Do you want to try to customize sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel down to some approximation of a minimum working kernel for your environment? Do you want to use some kernel other than that one? Do you want to consider this thread solved and stop work here, since your system is usable and you consider the compile time for this kernel to be acceptable?

nxe9 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2021 Posts: 80

Currently I am satisfied and the compilation time is acceptable to me. Perhaps in the future I will take a closer look at Pietinger's articles and perhaps add snippets that will speed up the compilation.

One more question. From what I see, gentoo-kernel automatically calls installkernel. In turn, my installkernel is built with the dracut flag, which means that initramfs is created at this point. However, I also see that gentoo-kernel has an initrams flag. However, I also see that gentoo-kernel has an initrams flag, which I think also calls for dracut initramfs.

Do I understand correctly that I have the following two options and they will give me the same result?

Option 1:
gentoo-kernel with initramfs flag and installkernel without dracut flag

Option 2:
gentoo-kernel without initramfs flag and installkernel with dracut flag

What about option number 3? Will initramfs be created twice?

Option 3:
gentoo-kernel with initramfs flag and intallkernel with dracut flag

pietinger · Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2024 6:32 pm Post subject:

nxe9 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2021 Posts: 80

So as not to get confused, I have to ask right away.

Here is a computer with manual kernel configuration, without dracut, without ugrd. Initramfs is generated by the genkernel.

pietinger · Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2024 7:45 pm Post subject:

nxe9 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2021 Posts: 80

Ok thanks, so I assume that with the genkernel installed, portage and its flags behave differently. So let's skip this situation and go back to the dracut system unless someone here wants to explain this behavior in more detail..

So currently gentoo-kernel package has the initramfs flag (default) and I activated the dracut flag in the installkernel package using the package.use file. In fact, when I remove the dracut flag from the installkernel, I get a depency conflict. So both flags are required and I assume that the gentoo-kernel package does not generate initramfs twice, because that would probably make no sense.