Custom kernel review and help request.

[preprotoprincipia]

Hi!
I'm most of the way through switching to gentoo from whinedows 11. I love my Dell hardware, but all the Microshaft nonsense had to go. Gentoo seemed to be a happy medium between a COTS distribution and building the entire thing myself. So far, I have no regrets. In my efforts to maximize the learning experience and knowledge of my new system, I have elected to use a custom kernel. My approach was very methodical, and I have spent several months defining in my notes exactly what I want my system to do, and what software will live on that system in order to satisfy those requirements. Concurrently, I examined the (excellent!) documentation provided by the both the Linux Kernel and Gentoo Project while cross-referencing every selection in the kernel with my specification and hardware requirements. However, while seemingly very nearly successful in my install - as the system seems to have survived the reboot process and is recognized by the Dell BIOS/UEFI stuff on my device - nothing appears on the screen after a message indicating that the initramfs has been loaded. Upon further research on this forum and elsewhere, it seems to me that these symptoms are consistent with some sort of issue configuring with how I configured the framebuffer. I moved a copy of the .config file to another device, and sure enough, upon inspection it seems that I have indeed forgotten to correctly configure the framebuffer options. (damn - so much for methodical)

Now, I think I may fix this without totally reinstalling the system by following the steps in the Fix my Gentoo section of the handbook, and re-compiling the kernel with these options selected. Before doing this, I would like to request some clarification on several things:

• Is this the right way to go about doing what I am trying to do?
• I don't fully understand how the rescue-install is able to operate on the somewhat-correct-but-not-quite-install without screwing everything up.

If it helps, I can provide a copy of the .config file for the kernel (any other feedback would also be welcome), but I am not quite sure how to attach it to one of these messages directly.

Thank you for your time and patience!

P.S. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

[pietinger]

P.S. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

preprotoprincipia,

Welcome to Gentoo Forums!

I suggest to start here:
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pieti ... _at_Gentoo
which explains also how to go back to your current installation ... it is the chapter:
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pieti ... stallation
(but of course I suggest to read it all)
... and which contains also a link to:
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pieti ... figuration
In this article you can decide if you want the current Gentoo-stable kernel 6.12 or the current LTS kernel - and next Gentoo-stable - 6.18; so you will find two links:
* https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pieti ... rsion_6.12
* https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pieti ... ent_Kernel
In both you will find instructions how to configure framebuffer device and console ... we really had this problem very often

I wish you much success and have fun with Gentoo!

[Hu]

Welcome to the forums. pietinger provided good pointers regarding kernel configuration, and there is nothing for me to add there. However, I can address some other questions.

Now, I think I may fix this without totally reinstalling the system by following the steps in the Fix my Gentoo section of the handbook, and re-compiling the kernel with these options selected.

Correct.

I don't fully understand how the rescue-install is able to operate on the somewhat-correct-but-not-quite-install without screwing everything up.

When you first installed Gentoo, you booted the rescue media, defined a partition table (or LVM), created filesystems, mounted those filesystems, then chroot'd in and began installing software for your system. This time, you will skip over the partition table and creation steps, and begin with mounting the filesystems that are still present from your prior work. You will then chroot into them[1], and resume work on configuring your kernel. You can use a similar technique later if you need to repair severely broken parts of the system, such as if you deleted a critical library and thereby rendered the live system unable to boot on its own. If you're unsure about this, please post the exact commands you intend to run, so that someone can review them before you do anything potentially destructive.

If it helps, I can provide a copy of the .config file for the kernel (any other feedback would also be welcome), but I am not quite sure how to attach it to one of these messages directly.

The forum does not support attachments (or images). We generally encourage people to upload large files, such as the kernel configuration, to a pastebin site, and then post here a link to the pastebin. The Gentoo package app-text/wgetpaste provides a tool to help with this, though you could also use a regular web browser to upload to the pastebin.

As for feedback, if you have doubts or concerns, then please share your kernel configuration via a pastebin. We have some posters who are quite adept at spotting configuration mistakes. We will also likely need more information about your hardware. The output of lspci and lsusb is commonly requested. There may be other commands that people want you to show the output of, depending on exactly what you need solved. If you reach a point where the kernel boots enough for you to use the system (even if you need to ssh in because the console is blank), and you want help, then please also pastebin the output of dmesg[2], so that respondents can check your kernel's output for questionable events.

[1]: chroot is a property of a process, so since you exited all the old processes when you halted the original install media in preparation for a reboot into the installed system, the effects of that chroot were lost. Thus, when you boot the rescue media again, you need to chroot, again.
[2]: dmesg shows the messages of the running kernel, so booting live media and running dmesg there is not usually helpful, because usually the live media kernel is operating properly, even when your custom kernel is not. (However, if your problem is that the live kernel works well and the custom one fails, letting us compare the dmesg of each may be informative.)

[NeddySeagoon]

preprotoprincipia,

Welcome to the forums.
Fix My Gentoo is not for you. That's for people that have a system with bits missing, so it cannot boot, or cannot run the shell, or something like that.

Your install may well boot properly but you have no console, so you can't see it.
If sshd is set up, that may well work, so your kernel could be fixed that way.

You need to boot your install media, mount your install as per the handbook but skip the partioning and making filesystems parts. Those steps are destructive.
Once you do the chroot steps, your install will be running on top of the boot media services, just as it was when you left it.