custom kernel with old disks: Invalid device specified.

[theYinYeti]

Hi. I compile a custom kernel for an old Toshiba 300CDS (ca. 1995 model) with a 2GB IDE drive.
Try as I might, I didn’t manage to get support for the IDE drive. I’m a little lost with the numerous options for drives.

So on boot, of course, neither /home nor /opt are found, or /tce for that matter.

The only hint I have toward making the drive being recognized is that TC4.3 did not recognize it, whereas TC4.4 does. And indeed, in the release notes, there is this phrase: “isa libata enabled for very old laptops”, which I guess is the important part for me.

But I was not able to find a working set of config options to match this release note    Based on a diff from TC’s config from previous to current kernel, my last attempt was to set CONFIG_PATA_LEGACY=y, along with CONFIG_ATA_BMDMA=y, to no avail.

Any idea?

[Rich]

Hi theYinYeti
If you really feel the need to compile a kernel, rather than use TC4.4, I suggest you go to:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/4.x/x86/release/src/
Go to the kernel directory and download the 3.0.21 version of the config and linux files and use those as
a starting point.

[curaga]

Maybe you're missing one of the generic options? But I agree with Rich, better start with a known-working config if you're not sure on what you need.

[theYinYeti]

First, thank you for your replies. Actually, I did exactly as you suggest (it ran fine), and then proceded to slim the system down to Toshiba-only hardware (failure only).

Now, let me apologize too I’m really stupid sometimes, but then, such stripping of a kernel is new for me :/
My error was, that after checking for succes with my first attempts in a virtual machine, I kept testing in a VM for further attempts, when the kernel was limited to hardware found in the Toshiba 300CDS only!

From now on, I’ll test my kernels with the real hardware And I’ll let you know.

Yves.

[Rich]

Hi theYinYeti
You are of course using  make menuconfig  or one of the other Linux configuration tools and not editing the config
file by hand. You may want to take a minute to read this too:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,8717.msg47128.html#msg47128

[theYinYeti]

Hi Rich
I did know about these shortcomings of self-compiling the kernel :-) But I have just enough experience to see roughly what interacts with what, and as for the hardware, it won’t ever change. So, no problem :-)

Edit: I almost forgot! Disks are seen now. Now, I have to find out why I don’t have enough privilege to chmod /home/tc/* and set hostname. Must be because I tried setting my hostname directly instead of “box”. Well, that’s going too far anyway: I can always say “host=xxx” on boot :-)

[Rich]

Hi theYinYeti
Enter  sudo chown tc:staff /home/tc
See if chmod works now.
Add the  sethostname  command to your  /opt/bootsync.sh  file.