I am trying to compile a custom kernel for my old laptop (it's a Dell Inspiron 1525, with a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of memory and a HDD -- not SSD). In this computer I have 3 partitions, 2 small ones (10GB each) with the roots of distros that I use, and a large one for files. I'm using MX Linux (if that is relevant) and compiling the kernel in the large partition, which is mounted at /mnt/files. The first thing I did was to clone the v4.19 tag from Linus' repo at kernel.org, then I copied the configuration from the kernel that is currently running (from /boot/config-4.19.0-9-686-pae), run make menuconfig, just changed the string that goes after the version name to -copy, saved and exited. Then I compiled. This kernel, with the configuration just copied from the one that currently runs, works well. It is not custom, however, as it just uses the exact same configurations.
Then I started a new one, again by copying the current .config and using make menuconfig to disable a lot of things that I thought were not relevant for me. The compilation with make ARCH=i386 -j3 and then make INSTALL_MOD_STRIP=1 modules_install went well, apparently, but when I type make INSTALL_MOD_STRIP=1 install I get this:
$ sudo make INSTALL_MOD_STRIP=1 install
sh ./arch/x86/boot/install.sh 4.19.0-custom arch/x86/boot/bzImage \
System.map "/boot"
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal 4.19.0-custom /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-custom
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms 4.19.0-custom /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-custom
Warning: Unable to find an initial ram disk that I know how to handle.
Will not try to make an initrd.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 4.19.0-custom /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-custom
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.19.0-custom
cryptsetup: WARNING: The initramfs image may not contain cryptsetup binaries
nor crypto modules. If that's on purpose, you may want to uninstall the
'cryptsetup-initramfs' package in order to disable the cryptsetup initramfs
integration and avoid this warning.
I: The initramfs will attempt to resume from /dev/sda1
I: (UUID=a1472f28-bb65-4a3a-a964-59b72d46b645)
I: Set the RESUME variable to override this.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/pm-utils 4.19.0-custom /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-custom
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/unattended-upgrades 4.19.0-custom /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-custom
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub 4.19.0-custom /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-custom
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub/themes/linen/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-custom
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.19.0-custom
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-9-686-pae
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.19.0-9-686-pae
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-copy
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.19.0-copy
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found antiX 19.2 (19.2) on /dev/sda2
done
The first kernel (-copy) also gave these warnings, however (and it is working). This new kernel (-custom) starts booting but then gets stuck in a busybox (initramfs) prompt. I can issue some commands there, and I can see that there is a file system with some basic programs (I suppose from busybox). But it doesn't finish the boot process.
When I execute the exit command in this (initramfs) prompt I get something along these lines:
Gave up waiting for root file system device. Common problems:
- Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
- Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
- Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)
ALERT! UUID=efdafcea-bdab-4c13-b2a7-caa77e4330ca does not exist. Dropping to a shell!
I tried to type the suggestions from the message above, but I don't know what to make out of them. If I type cat proc/cmdline in this same initramfs environment, I get something like:
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-custom root=UUID=efdafcea-bdab-4c13-b2a7-caa77e4330ca ro video=SVIDEO-1:d quiet splash
If I type cat proc/modules I get this output and if I type ls dev I get this. (Sorry for the bad image quality).
I am quite sure something that I removed during the configuration in menuconfig is what caused the problem, and if I understand anything from these messages I would guess that the kernel is not being able to mount the root filesystem, perhaps it is not finding the partition to mount?
My question here is, given this situation, is there any obvious candidates to be the problem among the settings in .config? This is my .config file.
