[SOLVED]GenkernelInstall after ManualKernelInstal NoModules

joseph knecht · n00b Joined: 08 Jul 2012 Posts: 16

Hello,

I am doing my first gentoo installation and I am playing a little bit around in order to explore the text mode environment and different kernel options. But now I have run into a problem and I would appreciate to get a little hint on this. What happened :

1.
First I did a manual installation of gentoo 3.1.12, upgraded to 3.2.21, intalled the framebuffer, learned to manually build an intramfs, etc. Everything worked fine. And when booting my manually configured kernel, all modules were loaded automatically (/etc/conf.d/modules beeing empty). Here the lsmod output I got at the time when everything still worked fine :

ferreirafm · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 8:42 pm Post subject:

Hi joseph knecht,
In the first and second issues you seem to be passing the initramfs to your kernel. In which case, it'll run every single module for hardware.
Doble check if you passed the initrd command to the kernel. The third case is exactly the contrary and the kernel is ruining the built-in modules only.
G'Luck

EDIT: if don't want such behavior, edit your /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-X.Y according to your needs (X.Y is your kernel version); or edit
your /etc/conf.d/modules if you want to run modules in a independent kernel manner.

joseph knecht · n00b Joined: 08 Jul 2012 Posts: 16

Hi ferreirafm,

Thanks for the good intention, but I think you are completely misinterpreting my post :

ferreirafm · Last edited by ferreirafm on Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:56 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hi joseph,
I'm sorry, I've got lost with such a long post. Anyway... answering your question...

jburns · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:48 am Post subject:

If your manually built kernel and the genkernel are both the same version then the modules from the manual build may have been erased or overwritten by the genkernel build. Check the contents of /lib/modules/.

joseph knecht · n00b Joined: 08 Jul 2012 Posts: 16

Hello ferreirafm,

First of all : Thanks for your help. My problem is solved. At this moment, all modules are loaded automatically again with either kernel.

But I am afraid I solved it without understanding really what happend and without understanding why it is solved now. I will have to do some reading in order to raise my level of understanding and also in order to valuate to the maximum some of your comments. This will take some time, but you pointed me to the right direction.

If I try to summarize what I still remember of my adventure, then I would say : I tried to load modules manually with modprobe, but I run into the error messages that the modules are not in the right format. At some moment I did something probably very stupid. Because I recompiled "a" kernel with "make && make modules_install" by using (without beeing aware) the genkernel .config. The resulting kernel did not boot at all because mounting of the root file system failed. After checking my kernel line (which was ok), I concluded that something very basic and stupid went wrong and I remembered your question about the .config file I am using. I recompiled my kernel again, this time using the correct historical manually configured .config and everything is solved. The modules are loaded under both kernels automatically.

My goal was to understand first what is going on before moving forward in order to implement your other advises like editing /etc/conf.d/modules or modules.autoload.d
I will still have to think this over before fully understanding what happened why exactly. But afterwards, I will start playing with these files. Because I still have to learn which module is actually used for what purpose.

The only point where I see clear at this moment as well as before is the initramfs. Actually I have never been running my manually configured kernel with the genkernel initramfs. I think this was a misunderstanding between us. Actually, I have 2 initramfs : the genkernel initramfs that I use only with genkernel and the manual initramfs that I use only with the manually configured kernel. This latter one does not take care of any modules.

So thanks once again. Gentoo is costing what I thought it is going to cost me. And it is leaning we what I want to learn. :lol:

_________________
Thanks for your feedback.

ferreirafm · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 1:54 pm Post subject:

Hi joseph knecht,
Congrats...
Sometimes it's very difficult to point out what exactly is wrong. There are hundreds of possible errors. We are limited just to give some directions when things are not obvious and generally we give answers based on several suppositions. From your side, it also is very difficult to find out what you did wrong. However, there is no doubt it's the best way to learn. Keep in mind that the Gentoo installation guide is only the first reading. So, go on for further literature. Here goes a more advance topic on kernels, which certainly will help you a lot.
Best,

P.S.: If you are done, put "[SOLVED]" in the beginning of your post header.