new install - powerdown during kernel compilation. <solved>

geburns · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 65 Location: st paul, mn

need some suggestions:

i'm an experienced gentoo user, but have taken a haitus for the past year when my laptop running gentoo died a horrible death.

i finally have the time to install gentoo again, but is having a hard time getting through the installation process.

first attempt, i used a kernel seed from pappy, was able to complete kernel build, but was unable to boot using the new kernel. after troubleshooting, i realized that i used a wrong version of kernel seed 3.4 instead of 3.2. I did an mrproper and tried to rebuild another kernel, but the laptop would get to a certain point compiling and then shut it self down.

i decided to change my approach, use genkernel defaults to build a bootable system and customize later (to save some time). but that too resulted in the laptop rebooting after sometime compiling.

any help would be appreciated!

-=g=-

The Doctor · l33t Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 948

This sounds to me like the laptop may be overheating. Try propping it up on several books to increase the airflow around the case. I would also try the custom kernel seed first as it is smaller and therefore less likely to overheat the laptop.
_________________
First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

geburns · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 65 Location: st paul, mn

i thought the same thing... cpu is over heating during compilation and shutting down the system, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

i was able to do an emerge -up system, emerge -up world, emerge vim and emerge -up gcc. no shutdown.

when i tried another genkernel all, the laptop shutdown.

i did all of this while the laptop is inside the fridge... yes call me crazy, but i wanted to eliminate cpu overheating as the problem...

i'm configuring a kernel seed from pappy and trying again, but at this point, i think something else is causing the machine to shutdown when building a kernel.

-=g=-

The Doctor · l33t Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 948

Well, That is strange. Of course the -p flag is the pretend flag so its not actually installing anything you know. Perhaps trying the system rescue CD or similar will have better results.

You might also want to try is running the memtest. The only other explanation I can think of would be hardware problems, and I really hope that is a lack of imagination on my part.
_________________
First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

geburns · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 65 Location: st paul, mn

yep, understood that the -p is pretend, but i did emerge with out the -p. sorry for the the confusion, i was posting late last night.

i'm still trying today, same results. i migrated from grub to grub2 and ran the appropriate commands to install and configure. genkernel all did finish compiling bzImage before shutting down, not sure when it actually stopped. i've yet to look at the genkernel logs.

i'm working on a customized kernel config, hopefully, i'll get that completed and successfully compiled.

i don't have a second computer, so it is a bit of a pain to go back and forth between win7 and gentoolive via usb and having to chroot everytime to troubleshoot (i'm installing gentoo on a different drive)

a lot has changed since i installed from scratch a while back. its good though, to have to learn/relearn what has changed. hopefully, i'll have a break though soon.

-=g=-

geburns · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 65 Location: st paul, mn

i still do not have bootable kernel. i'm using the the latest gentoo live on a usb stick. the info below is from my chrooted environment:

djdunn · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 9:47 pm Post subject:

try not using genkernel, and going to the /usr/src/linux directory and run

geburns · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 65 Location: st paul, mn

i was able to complete kernel build using pappy's seed. but, restart failed with a VFS error.

it appears that the kernel is unable to find root (/dev/sda3)

i'm using grub2, so the config is automatically generated given what it sees in my chrooted environment. i followed the grub2 wiki instructions to mount /boot after going into the chrooted env. same issue on reboot.

anyone familiar enough with GRUB2 care to interject? i'm looking at docs, but seems to be limited at this point.

-=g=-

BillWho · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2012 Posts: 1576 Location: US

geburns,

The newer grub should be easy - here's my entries for gentoo and arch. If you don't have an initramfs, don't use uuid

menuentry "Gentoo Base System x86_64-3.4.2-gentoo-r1 (on /dev/sdb14)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,msdos1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 1a808cff-31af-4036-8fa7-380098554f71
linux /kernel root=UUID=b3bfd853-2f66-4946-9a08-428af6f50ba1 rootfstype=ext3 vga=794
initrd /initramfs
}
menuentry "Arch Linux [/boot/vmlinuz-linux] (on /dev/sda9)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(/dev/sda,msdos8)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f27d2e-f241-443f-b2fb-79869d2ef3f4
linux /vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=73954c34-b96e-4f7a-a555-66b07fa78080 #nomodeset vga=794 radeon.modeset=1
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
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Good luck :wink:

Since installing gentoo, my life has become one long emerge

geburns · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 65 Location: st paul, mn

Marked solved as the original problem of shutting down when compiling using genkernel was fixed by:

not using genkernel and

creating cleaner .config file from pappy's kernel seed
make && make modules_install.

-=g=-

The Doctor · l33t Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 948

Ok, even though you already marked this as solved, I don't know much about grub 2 as I refuse to use it, but I think you have a kernel problem, not a grub problem.

Did you build you root file system and disk drivers into the kernel, not as modules?
_________________
First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

geburns · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 65 Location: st paul, mn

the original problem of the machine shutting down while building a kernel is solved. the problem of not having a bootable kernel is not. it's certainly possible to have a misconfiguration in the .config that's causing this, but the usual suspects like not having the filesystem drivers compiled directly and not as a module. the symptoms certainly matches that, but it the first thing i checked and double checked. it may be my bios is not properly reporting and that's causing the problem, but i haven't figured out what boot parameters i can add to the kernel line in .cfg to for the issue. i can take the quick way out and ask pappy to review my .config, but where's the fun in that

unfortunately, having only one useable laptop stops me from throwing all my time at this. i have to use the laptop for work (not dual booting, i have a separate drive, for now)

the next step is to install grub legacy and chainload or revert back to grub legacy and mask v2.0 if that works. maybe even lilo just just exhaust that line

at any rate, i'm fairly confident that once i can devote more than 20-30 min at a time to troubleshooting this, that i will eventually figure it out. at this point, its more important to learn along the way than just to get it done.

thanks for the suggestions!