So, what exactly do you do when you screw your kernel up?

Message

RSInd · Post by **RSInd** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 3:32 am

Uh, yeah. So I was busy customizing my kernel to support my pcHDTV card, my new nvidia card, and my somewhat flaky on board network adapter and it decided to die on me. It won't boot up at all now.

What DOES one do? I've recovered from a lot of wondows crashes at this point in my career, but this is the first linux crash I've had. The only bootable device I've got is the gentoo livecd. Steps anyone?

Thanks in advance.

meowsqueak · Post by **meowsqueak** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 3:39 am

This is why you should keep two kernel images - one that you know works, and your 'new' one. Then, if the new one fails, you just use GRUB or LILO (if you've set it up right) to boot the known-good kernel. I actually keep the last three kernels I've built, but that's because I'm paranoid

Be prepared. A good motto. Backups come in around here too....

cripwalk · Post by **cripwalk** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 3:41 am

You can boot your livecd.

Once you have a prompt, mount your / and /boot partitions.

If hda1 is your /boot and hda2 is / then you could do

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mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/gentoo
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot
chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash

now you will be inside your install. Now you can recompile your kernel like normal and copy your kernel to /boot. exit out of the chroot , unmount your drives, reboot and you should be good to go.

Pete_Keller · Post by **Pete_Keller** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 3:47 am

Don't forget to backup your .config before you screw it (errr.... screw with it)

Pete

RSInd · Post by **RSInd** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 10:07 pm

Hey hey, that worked dandy. Thanks for the help. I was able to get everything configured to boot multiple kernels so I wouldn't screw myself too badly if I made a mistake.

Have a good one.