"Could not find the root block device in ."

[sterlingm]

Hi, I am trying to install Gentoo and am stuck. First of all, I should say that this is the first time I have ever manually installed an OS. Its taken me about 4 attempts of starting over to get to this point. I hope my questions are not redundant or too "noob". I am very new to this so please be explicit as possible when answering.

I have gotten to the reboot part, but when I boot into Gentoo, it tells me

"!!Block device 801 is not a valid root device...
!!Could not find the root block device in .
Please specify another value or: Press Enter for the same, type "shell" for a shell, or q to skip..."

And then it prompts me with "root block device() ::"

What does this mean? Do I have to start over or is there a way I can just fix it? I could never get grub installed (another issue in itself because I've used grub when I had ubuntu and debian so why wouldn't it work? ), so I just used lilo. Could that be the issue?

I felt very uncertain when I was messing around all of the conf files, so my guess is the problem is in there - but where? What do I check for? How do I know I am using the correct values?

Any help is much appreciated.

[avx]

If it can't find a root device, that usually means of these things:
a) you did not built support for your mainboard controller into the kernel, ie. it must be built in, not as a module
b) same as a), except for the filesystem you are using for /
c) specified a wrong device in the boot loader

As for GRUB, it seems to be working, at least I wouldn't know what else would offer to drop to a shell this early in the boot process.

As far as rescuing goes, just boot up your live medium again, mount the partitions and chroot, then you're back in your system and can try to fix the problems layed out above.

If that doesn't help, please provide your grub config and relevant parts of your kernel config together with a list of your hardware (lspci). If it get's long, please use a pastebin such as pastebin.com. You can paste from the commandline with `wgetpaste` (need to `emerge wgetpaste` for that to work).

Welcome to the forums
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[sterlingm]

[BillWho]

sterlingm.

Try adding rootfstype=ext3 to your kernel line.

With /boot/kernel make sure the symlink is set in the boot directory.

[avx]

[sterlingm]

Okay I am now able to reboot, select in Gentoo (in grub!!), and login with root. My problem now is that my networking is not working. Currently, I am connected through an ethernet cable to a modem in my dorm room. The quick install guide says to do this before rebooting -

livecd etc # cd init.d
livecd init.d # ln -s net.lo net.eth0
livecd init.d # cd ../conf.d
livecd conf.d # echo 'config_eth0="192.168.1.10 netmask 255.255.255.0 brd 192.168.1.255"' >> net
livecd conf.d # echo 'routes_eth0="default via 192.168.1.1"' >> net
livecd conf.d # echo 'hostname="myhostname"' > hostname
livecd conf.d # rc-update add net.eth0 default
(If you compiled your network card driver as a module, add it to /etc/conf.d/modules
livecd conf.d # echo 'modules="r8169"' >> /etc/conf.d/modules

I guess I should have changed the ip address, but I don't know what to. As root, I try to do net-setup eth0 - it tells me '-bash: net-setup: command not found'. When I ifconfig, it only shows lo. My /etc/conf.d/net looks like -

config_eth0="192.168.1.10 netmask 255.255.255.0 brd 192.168.1.255"
routes_eth0="default via 182.168.1.1"

Its this way from the commands I did in the install. How can I fix this? Thank you all so much for the help so far!

[BillWho]

sterlingm,

[sterlingm]

[BillWho]

sterlingm,

remove routes_eth0="dhcp"

[sterlingm]

I do that and it has no affect. I try to modprobe r8169, but it cannot find modprobe command. I try to do ifconfig eth0 dhcp and it says "Host name lookup failure".

[BillWho]

sterlingm,

Are you doing this while chrooted ? How are you chrooting ?

Do you have any gentoo mirrors setup?

Paste back /etc/make.conf

[sterlingm]

[BillWho]

sterlingm,

You skipped or missed important pages of the gentoo installation handbook

I would suggest going through them starting with Chapter 4 given you have no swap partition in fstab. There's a lot missing in make.conf too

[sterlingm]

Well I am installing on my whole hard disk so is swap really necessary? And what is missing from make.conf?

[BillWho]

[sterlingm]

[avx]

[sterlingm]

[avx]

If you are sure that r8169 is the driver you need for your network card, check if you've got either CONFIG_R8169=y or CONFIG_R8169=M in your kernel config by doing

[sterlingm]

[avx]

Either open /usr/src/linux/.config in an editor and define it there, or `cd /usr/src/linux ; make menuconfig`

Either way, after you did that, you've got to recompile your kernel - if you just build it as a module, you can just recompile modules alone and modprobe it right away.
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++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.

[sterlingm]

Okay I am connected to the Internet, but I don't understand this.

I went into /usr/src/linux/.config, changed #CONFIG_R8169 is not set to CONFIG_R8169=y. I then tried to modprobe it and it told me it could not find the "Module r8169".

When I reboot into the livecd and do lspci -k -s $(lspci | awk '/Ethernet/ {print $1}'), it tells me
"44:00.0 Ethernes controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 03)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1423
Kernel driver in use: r8169
Kernel modules: r8169"

So I am using r8169, but it cannot find it? So what happened to allow the networking to work whenever I cannot modprobe r8169?

[sterlingm]

I am nearly complete I believe. I am now trying to install and start gnome. Gnome appears to emerge fine. However, when I get to the line - /etc/init.d/dbus start - it tells me '/etc/init.d/dbus: no such file or directory.' Why would this happen? I have dbus in my USE in /etc/make.conf. The guide doesn't mention anything else about it - just put it in your USE and then call that line followed by an rc-update. I tried to just skip it and go to 'getent group plugdev'. An error does not occur, but I get no feedback (the guide says it should return plugdev:x:104:. Then whenever I exit the root and login as a user to startx, it tells me it cannot find the startx command. Does this stem from dbus?

My USE in /etc/make.conf is -

USE="mmx sse sse2 nptl nptlonly ipv6 -fortran unicode -qt4 -kde X dbus gtk gnome branding"

[avx]

[sterlingm]