SlammedDime
06-19-2005, 03:42
*Disclaimer* - I'll start by saying that I am completely new to *nix systems, and I am very tired at the moment, so most of what I have learned over the course of the day may come out slurred. :)
I recently got my Thinkpad R51. Love it, no problems, works wonderful. I also have this 160GB drive that i've made external with a Sabrent case. Instead of messing with my notebook hard drive, I figured I would just use this for linux.
I want to be able to boot/mount this external drive on a Slackware 10.1 install. As it stands now, here is how my drive is setup:
LILO in the MBR
/dev/sda1 - /root
/dev/sda5 - /swap
/dev/sda6 - /usr
/dev/sda7 - /opt
/dev/sda8 - /home
The notebook supports USB booting, and I have installed Slackware completely onto the drive, AND I can actually boot the drive, get the LILO prompt, and start Slackware. HOWEVER, Slackware fails to mount the root partition. I would assume because of the lack of usb support in the kernel.
My question I pose to you, is how can a newbie such as myself compile a kernel that will allow Slackware to mount my external drive on startup. I have no floppy drive on the laptop, so I can't do a rescue boot. The Slackware 10.1 Disc 2 isn't bootable like its predecessors as a rescue disk. I know what I want can be done, I just need to know and learn how. I see this as a challenge, and something that will help me quickly learn the basics of compiling and customizing kernels.
I suppose I could see if my desktop here supports USB booting, and use its floppy drive to do the rescue and do all the fun stuff, however I still don't know what I would do once I booted. I've searched the net for hours, and found lots of info, but it means pretty much nothing to me. LOL.
I recently got my Thinkpad R51. Love it, no problems, works wonderful. I also have this 160GB drive that i've made external with a Sabrent case. Instead of messing with my notebook hard drive, I figured I would just use this for linux.
I want to be able to boot/mount this external drive on a Slackware 10.1 install. As it stands now, here is how my drive is setup:
LILO in the MBR
/dev/sda1 - /root
/dev/sda5 - /swap
/dev/sda6 - /usr
/dev/sda7 - /opt
/dev/sda8 - /home
The notebook supports USB booting, and I have installed Slackware completely onto the drive, AND I can actually boot the drive, get the LILO prompt, and start Slackware. HOWEVER, Slackware fails to mount the root partition. I would assume because of the lack of usb support in the kernel.
My question I pose to you, is how can a newbie such as myself compile a kernel that will allow Slackware to mount my external drive on startup. I have no floppy drive on the laptop, so I can't do a rescue boot. The Slackware 10.1 Disc 2 isn't bootable like its predecessors as a rescue disk. I know what I want can be done, I just need to know and learn how. I see this as a challenge, and something that will help me quickly learn the basics of compiling and customizing kernels.
I suppose I could see if my desktop here supports USB booting, and use its floppy drive to do the rescue and do all the fun stuff, however I still don't know what I would do once I booted. I've searched the net for hours, and found lots of info, but it means pretty much nothing to me. LOL.