[gentoo-desktop] System problems

[Lindsay Haisley]

I'm caught between a rock and a hard place.

I've been running this desktop box using kernel 2.6.23-gentoo-r3 and
have come to the point at which there are too many dependencies and
reverse dependencies, so I _have_ to upgrade to kernel 2.6.29-gentoo-r5
and have been unable to bring the system up in the new kernel.  Here's
what's happening.

The newer kernel requires a newer version of udev, which I emerged.  The
system came up with a root device of some sort mounted, I think in
single-user mode, but couldn't mount other devices.

So I changed the main drive designations to UUID's in /etc/fstab,
re-emerged the newer udev, and tried again.  This time I got a message
that the kernel needed a root parameter at boot time.  It seems that all
my /dev/hda? drives have been renamed /dev/sda? so I set gave
"root=/dev/sda4" as a kernel parameter and got a little further.  After
"Checking root filesystem" in the boot sequence, I got a message that
the UUID for the root filesystem wasn't understood in /etc/fstab.

So I set the root filesystem in /etc/fstab to /dev/sda4, and got the
same error - that "/dev/sda4" was not understood either, although the
kernel seemed to understand this just fine as a boot parameter, and once
again, I'm dumped into a very limited single-user mode.

So I'm stuck!  I had to boot from a rescue disk, back-version to
udev-141 and revert to kernel 2.6.23-gentoo-r3 to get my desktop back.

What do I need to put into /etc/fstab to satisfy the kernel?  I need to
move forward with this, but I need my desktop system to run my business.
Any _real_ suggestions will be welcome.  Please be aware that I'm no
Linux novice, so don't give me novice advice.  I've been building,
running, and getting paid to admin Linux systems since 1995.

-- 
Lindsay Haisley       | "Everything works if you let it"
FMP Computer Services |   (The Roadie)
512-259-1190          |
http://www.fmp.com    |