grub doesn't like gentoo's brand new kernel

[idella4]

I'm no beginner at this. I've successfully built gentoo three times in the past, always able to resolve the conflicts.


But this!!!!!

I built the kernel in the usual way; i.e. by compiling the kernel!!
I copied the kernel in the usual way to /boot.
I even named it according to gentoo's preferred conventions.
Then at boot up, grub doesn't like it. Unknown file type. well, actually "'bad file or directory type'"

It's not that it can't find it. It found it allright. It doesn't want to play with it.!!!!
Gentoo new no bootup!
??????????

Anyone know what's going on here. Never seen it before.
I still have the old gentoo along with fedora and ubuntu, and suse. no problems .
They all boot up just fine.

What has grub got against genny's brand new kernel???

[cyrillic]

So what type of file does the "file" command say it is ?

Code: Select all

# file /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-rc9 
/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-rc9: Linux kernel x86 boot executable RO-rootFS, root_dev 0x900, swap_dev 0x1, Normal VGA 

[pappy_mcfae]

Check to make sure that the "kernel" you are trying to use isn't a link instead. The finished kernel (bzImage) is located in /usr/src/<source_dir>/arch/x86/boot (assuming x86 or amd64). This has been the case since the .24 kernel family. I skipped the whole .23 family, so I don't know if that's where they store the finished kernel. The .22 and earlier kernels stored the finished kernel in /usr/src/<source_dir>/arch/i386/boot (32 bit), and /usr/src/<source_dir>/arch/x86_64/boot (64 bit).

Blessed be!
Pappy

[terracotta_shore]

'bad file or directory type'

Is that grub error 2 by any chance? Thought it was. Here's one explanation.

What has grub got against genny's brand new kernel???

Nothing, if that link is relevant. What did you use to prepare your partitions?

[ziggysquatch]

before copying over the kernel did you make sure /boot is mounted. I did that once and got all confused. The file will copy fine but it won't be on the actual boot partition.

[idella4]

pappy_mcfae

"Check to make sure that the "kernel" you are trying to use isn't a link instead. "

I did it manually, copied it from just where you suggest in the same way Tx anyway.


cyrillic

"So what type of file does the "file" command say it is ?

I says
"file /boot/kernel-gentoo-2.6.24-19-generic
/boot/kernel-gentoo-2.6.24-19-generic: Linux kernel x86 boot executable RO-rootFS, root_dev 0x822, swap_dev 0x2, Normal VGA
"

terracotta_shore

"What did you use to prepare your partitions?

Can't remember. They've been there for years. I used Suse's partitioner to format it with ext3. Can't see that's a problem, until I read the link. This is not nice. This is exactly what seems to have occurred
All I have to do is reformat and start again!!! Well, take an image, reformat and start again.
Thanks for the bad news! though not your fault. grub's fault.

Tx

[terracotta_shore]

idella4, I can't quite make out from your post whether you formatted the partition years ago, or reformatted it recently with Suse. My question was ambiguous. I should have said format, not prepare.

One way round this is to have a separate /boot partition formatted ext2. If I'm understanding things correctly here, an ext2 partition will have 128-byte inodes which grub can cope with, whereas ext3 partitions created with e2fsprogs ≥ 1.40.5 will have 256-byte inodes which grub can't cope with. Does the new installer default to a separate /boot? I haven't used it, so I don't know - I haven't borked my fairly-recent stage 3 install yet. Perhaps this is this why there's not a blizzard of complaints about this issue. Perhaps it's just affecting multi-booters putting the boot directory in / .

This business stung me with Fedora 9 using the Fedora live CD. Although I had pre-formatted the target / partition on my multi-boot, the live CD wouldn't proceed without reformatting it. So when I tried to boot into the new install, guess what? "Error 2 : Bad file or directory type"