[mdlug] Kernel Woes/Issues

[Robert Adkins]

	I did some testing in building the latest kernel for OpenSuSe 10.3
and that went through without a hitch. The server boots up perfectly fine
and everything runs great.

	Unfortunately, when I did the same for an older edition of SuSe,
version 9.2, I am running into issues. The reason I need to build this
kernel is due to the fact that the SCSI card I picked up requires a driver
that had known issues for that particular revision of the Linux Kernel and
thus SuSe didn't build the module for it. From my reading, the issue has
been resolved and it is included with later versions of SuSe, such as
OpenSuSe 10.3.

	So, I built the kernel, the modules, did the install, rebooted the
server and chose the new kernel... Got an error message.

	The error referred to something about "subfs" and caused a failure
during the init process, which appears to be related to the ext3fs.

	At first, I thought that maybe I made an error in configuring the
kernel and thus did a straight "stock" kernel rebuild, only making one
single change, which was adding in the missinge scsi driver.

	Building this kernel and installing it, left me with the same error
message.

	It appears that the kernel is having trouble mounting up and reading
the ext3 file system that the server is running as it would occasionally
"drop" and then "reacquire" the ability to see the filesystem, for example
claiming that it didn't know what "ls" was and then moments later running an
"ls" command just perfectly. I believe this is also why I ended up with
Kernel panic at one point.

	Googling, I have found a mention of subfs having something to do
with floppy and CD-ROMs, which is puzzling as it should have no impact on
the ext3fs mounted drives.

	I'm going to comment out the CD-ROM and Floppy drive in /etc/fstab
and see if that corrects the issue, as I really have no need for either in
the server and go from there.

	If anyone is familiar with this issue and knows a quick way around
it, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions.

	Thanks,
	Rob