Re: RH kernel upgrade

[Jamie McCarthy <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

bruce@armintl.com (Bruce Smith) writes:

> The only difference is because Redhat compiles their kernels with
> SCSI support as modules.  If you compile your own kernel with
> your SCSI support in the kernel, you don't need an initrd, nor
> will you have this problem.

Ah, of course.  Yes, I'd made a habit of putting the appropriate
drivers into the kernel itself.  So I guess it might not have needed
the ramdisk at all!  Or at least not the latest version of it.

> The BIOS loads the kernel, and it boots the system.  It needs SCSI
> support to mount the root filesystem, and the module is on the
> filesystem (catch-22).  It will kernel panic at that point without
> the SCSI module.
> 
> That's were the initial ram disk comes in.  It loads the SCSI
> module into memory at boot time so it's available for the kernel.

Thanks, Bruce.  I have a little better understanding now of what's
going on at boot time.
--
        Jamie McCarthy
        jamie@mccarthy.org
 http://jamie.mccarthy.org/