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Krispy Koder
n00b
Joined: 17 Oct 2005
Posts: 4
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 Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 6:16 pm Post subject: First Manual Kernel Configuration |
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Let me start out by saying I'm a relatively new Linux user and brand new Gentoo user (haven't even completed an install yet), so if something I say doesn't make sense or I explain something wrong, please bear with me.
I am attempting a stage1 install. I have completed the bootstrap and system build without error, and have arrived at the kernel configuration step where I'm a little nervous. In the past I have always opted to install a new release of a distribution rather than upgrade the kernel myself (I've used Mandriva, Fedora, and Slackware) and am pretty intimidated (to say the least) by menuconfig. between last night and today I did some reading on the option of genkernel, however my personal feeling is (and correct me if I'm wrong) if I'm going through the trouble of optimizing my system from top to bottom to get the best possible performance out of it, using genkernel kind of undermines that individual system-made approach the really is my reason for trying out Gentoo in the first place.
Anyway, long question short, I am about to attempt my first manual kernel configuration and before I do I just want to make sure that if I mess something up and it won't boot that I will be able to go back, try and fix it, and try booting again. If that isn't possible, I may be forced to go with genkernel. Thanks for the help in advance guys.
EDIT: typo. |
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Kurt Steiner
Bodhisattva
Joined: 01 Apr 2005
Posts: 1050
Location: Ostroleka, Polska
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| Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 6:32 pm Post subject: |
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Don't worry - your linux will be ok. If you do something wrong (and probably you will  ) you will be able to change it.  By the way I wouldn't recommend genkernel - you will learn much more if you configure your kernel on your own. 
Little advice: while configuring say "yes" to everything that sounds like your hardware and you think you'll need. After a while you will learn more and make your kernels better. |
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Krispy Koder
n00b
Joined: 17 Oct 2005
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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Kurt:
Thanks for the advice. I will now attempt to configure my first kernel, and, as you said, I'm sure I will do something wrong the first time  , but now that I know I can fix it after it's not so scary. I appreciate the speedy and helpful response. |
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Krispy Koder
n00b
Joined: 17 Oct 2005
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, completed the installation, attempted to boot, and despite how slowly and carefully I went through menuconfig, I seem to have messed up some part of the kernel.
First of all, when I boot up I am receiving this error message:
| Quote: | Warning: The dma on your harddrive is turned off.
This may really slow down the fsck process.
File system is NOT clean
File system seems mounted read-only. Skipping journal replay. |
I remembered something in the installation handbook about dma, so I went back and checked it in the guide and my kernel, and I had it enabled. I just quickly created a Yahoo! Geocities account to upload my .config file to, so I would appreciate it if anyone could take a look at that and see if they can find an error or misconfiguration in there.
My second problem is for some reason the forcedeth module won't load. I have an nForce2 motherboard, so without forcedeth I don't have networking. I believe I have an old 3Com 3c905 floating around somewhere so if Gentoo isn't compatible with forcedeth, that's always an option. However I would prefer to get the integrated ethernet working. Was I suppossed to enable something with forcedeth in the kernel configuration?
Thanks again for your help everyone. Much appreciated.
EDIT: fixed link. |
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cyrillic
Watchman
Joined: 19 Feb 2003
Posts: 7313
Location: Groton, Massachusetts USA
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| Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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If you want DMA to work for your harddrive, you need to enable support for your IDE controller's chipset.
| Code: | Device Drivers --->
ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support --->
<*> AMD and nVidia IDE support |
The forcedeth module you are looking for is here.
| Code: | Device Drivers --->
Device Drivers --->
Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit) --->
<M> Reverse Engineered nForce Ethernet support (EXPERIMENTAL) |
A great tool to help you know your hardware is the lspci command, and knowing your hardware is quite useful if you want to build good kernels. |
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Krispy Koder
n00b
Joined: 17 Oct 2005
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 1:29 am Post subject: |
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cyrillic:
Both your suggestions worked seamlessly. I now get no warning about dma, my nForce2 chipset is detected at boot, and the forcedeth module loads successfully. However, for some reason dhcpcd still fails to start. I am getting the error message:
| Quote: | ERROR: Problem starting needed services.
"netmount" was not started. |
I am not even sure where to start looking for a solution to this one. BTW I'm sorry if I seem like a huge newbie with all these installation questions, but I have never encountered any of these problems in another distro (because I've always let them do it for me in the past ). I really appreciate everyones help and understanding. Thanks again.
EDIT: FYI, I also have a 3com NIC installed in the first PCI port (shows up with lspci). ifconfig prints
| Code: | Warning: cannot open /proc/net/dev (No such file or directory). Limited output.
Warning: cannot open /proc/net/dev (No such file or directory). Limited output.
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:6E:CE:D0:E9
inet addr:192.168.1.102 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
Interrupt:22 Base address:0x6000
Warning: cannot open /proc/net/dev (No such file or directory). Limited output.
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 |
but I believe my integrated ethernet is net.eth0. rc-update add net.eth1 default prints
| Code: | | * /sbin/rc-update: /etc/init.d/net.eth1 not found; aborting. |
This means that net.eth1 doesn't exist even though I have a 3com ethernet card installed? Should I remove the 3com card? |
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cyrillic
Watchman
Joined: 19 Feb 2003
Posts: 7313
Location: Groton, Massachusetts USA
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| Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Krispy Koder wrote: | but I believe my integrated ethernet is net.eth0. rc-update add net.eth1 default prints
| Code: | | * /sbin/rc-update: /etc/init.d/net.eth1 not found; aborting. |
This means that net.eth1 doesn't exist even though I have a 3com ethernet card installed? Should I remove the 3com card? |
This means the net.eth1 script does not exist. By default, Gentoo only comes with 1 net.eth script, and it is really just a symlink to net.lo
If you have more than 1 NIC, you just need to create some more symlinks.
| Code: | # cd /etc/init.d
# ls -l net.*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 Oct 14 12:25 net.eth0 -> net.lo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 26985 Oct 14 12:25 net.lo
# ln -s net.lo net.eth1
# ln -s net.lo net.eth2
... |
ps. It also looks like your /proc filesystem is not mounting correctly. This could be something like missing /proc filesystem support in the kernel, or wrong permissions on the /proc mountpoint. |
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Installing Gentoo
