Debian

The relevant lines are:

Code:

default         0

and the first boot option as the default is "0"

Code:

title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-1-686 Default
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /vmlinuz root=/dev/mapper/rootfs ro\n")
initrd          /initrd.img

so can you send us the output from:

Code:

# ls -l /boot/initrd.img

and if that is a symbolic link (/boot/initrd.img -> /boot/some_other-file.img) please send the output from an "ls -l" against that file as well.

wait.... look at this:

Code:

kernel          /vmlinuz root=/dev/mapper/rootfs ro\n")

see that "\n)" at the end...

Are you sure that is correct?

I have never seen that in any menu.lst I have seen and it looks like extra text from a grub menu builder that accidently got inserted.

The "\n" is a newline character and the trailing double quote and closing parenthesis almost certainly says that this was inserted as part of a string wrapped in quotes and inside a matching set of parenthesis.

I may be wrong but...

The \n") looks wrong but I also think it's relatively harmless. It will botch the "ro" argument so the kernel will not see it, but IIUC that's the only harm it does.

In fact, I think the tangent into Grub is wrong. I'd like to suggest you trace back a few steps and explain what exactly you are trying to accomplish. Have you looked at update-initramfs and the initramfs-tools? My understanding of these is limited, but it looks to me like it's what you should be using. But of course, if you know better, perhaps you could at least expand a bit on this topic.

(I was summoned here by otheus for some reason. I'm afraid I won't be able to follow this thread regularly.)

Yes I tried update-initramfs and it works fine in general. There are some important reasons for also trying to understand/modify the initrd directly:

1. to modify the scripts that update-initramfs installs but don't work correctly. E.g. the part that mounts the / filesystem fails if that disk is not ready immediately (but e.g. via USB); it is recognized 5 seconds later, but by then it's too late.

2. to modify the initrd on a different computer, or via a different operating system on the same computer. This is necessary if the initrd does not boot. The update-initramfs cannot help here since it assumes that things in the initrd should be as under the currently running OS.

I see you're trying to use a device mapper. Could you provide the initramfs scripts in /etc directory that create the device mapper rootfs? I use device mapper with cryptsetup/luks to encrypt my rootfs. The problem is probably that you don't have the appropriate scripts to create /dev/mapper/rootfs before init calls pivot_root.