please, please help. kernel does not boot

[LemonFizz]

I performed yet another complete clean getoo install (now installed this 8 times) using lilo as the boot loader (yes I have tried GRUB) from a stage 3 tarball using vanilla sources (yes I have tried stage 1 and stage 2 and I have tried each with gentoo-sources) and I get the following message.

[wilburpan]

Just a stab in the dark, but you probably forgot to include something in your kernel when you compiled it. What it is at this point would be hard to say. Here are some tips, however.

I was a complete beginner when I first tried installing Gentoo. At that time, that was also my first attempt at compiling a kernel. These are some things I would keep in mind for any other beginners at kernel compiling:

1. It is much more important to have a working kernel than an optimized kernel at first. You can always try to optimize and recompile later.

2. Compile everything directly into the kernel at first. You can decide what can be compiled as modules later. This will avoid the problem where something that the kernel needs at boot time is actually compiled as a module. If this happens, you can't boot, since you need to boot the kernel before modules get loaded.

3. Keep it simple at first. All you really need to get the kernel and Gentoo going at first is what's outlined in step 15 of the install docs and networking. The first time I got the kernel working (this was install attempt #5 for me) I literally did not include anything in the gentoo-sources kernel except for the appropriate file systems and my network card. I did not have scanner support, I didn't have printer support, but by god, I had a working system. You can always add the other stuff later.

Since I was still very much a beginner at that time, the only way that I was able to do even this simple thing was as I set the configurations in the kernel, I highlighted the corresponding lines in the install doc -- this way I was able to make sure that everything got done.

3. Do you have a RAID controller? If so, this needs to be built into the kernel. My other big stupid beginner mistake was not realizing that my computer actually had a RAID controller which my hard drive was plugged into. Once I figured this out, installed RAID support into the kernel, grub and Gentoo worked without a problem.