Unknown symbol error on 2.6.2 kernel compile – 3381 days old

[Toadie]

Hello:

I need some help. I am trying to build the 2.6.2 kernel by following the instructions on this excellent post:

http://www.bitbenderforums.com/vb22/...104#post296104

When i execute "make" it completes with no error. However, "make modules_install" will complete with an error. Here is the condensed output i see:

[root@hostname linux-2.6.2]# make modules_install
INSTALL drivers/scsi/3w-xxxx.ko
INSTALL drivers/scsi/53c700.ko
INSTALL drivers/serial/8250.ko
INSTALL drivers/serial/8250_pci.ko
INSTALL drivers/serial/8250_pnp.ko
INSTALL drivers/scsi/a100u2w.ko
INSTALL drivers/scsi/aacraid/aacraid.ko
<<output snipped for brevity>>
INSTALL drivers/usb/host/uhci-hcd.ko
INSTALL drivers/scsi/ultrastor.ko
INSTALL drivers/usb/core/usbcore.ko
INSTALL drivers/usb/class/usblp.ko
INSTALL drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.ko
INSTALL drivers/scsi/wd7000.ko
INSTALL fs/xfs/xfs.ko
INSTALL drivers/usb/input/xpad.ko
INSTALL lib/zlib_inflate/zlib_inflate.ko
if [ -r System.map ]; then /sbin/depmod -ae -F System.map 2.6.2; fi
WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.2/kernel/drivers/scsi/megaraid.ko needs unknown symbol mega_create_proc_entry
[root@hostname linux-2.6.2]#

Googling "mega_create_proc_entry "unknown symbol" turns up nothing. Since i was thinking this message is a compiler warning and not an error, i installed the resultant 2.6 kernel. However, the machine freezes half way through the LILO progress bar.

Mandrake 9.2, KDE 3.2, PIII 700, 384 MB RAM, . I am a newbie (as if you couldn't tell).

Oh yeah, one more thing, here is the gcc version i have:

[root@hostname linux-2.6.2]# gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 3.3.1 (Mandrake Linux 9.2 3.3.1-2mdk)

Thanks in advance,
-John

[Grogan]

That's not a compiler warning, it's a warning coming from depmod about a missing symbol. That may or may not prevent the driver from functioning.

There probably aren't that many people who build that as a module... if you really do have a megaraid controller and your boot device is attached to it, then it's certainly not going to boot. (unless you use and load an initrd image)

LILO comes up, because it's a low level thing that launches from the master boot record. It has physical mappings to the location of it's map file, and your kernel image. It sounds very much to me, like your kernel doesn't have support for your controller.

So make that megaraid driver a built-in, not as a module. Anything needed to boot the system, must be built in, or a module that loads from the initrd (initial ram drive). A custom kernel does not need an initrd if everything essential is built in. This includes things like your filesystem drivers too.

[Toadie]

Hi Grogan:

Thanks for the help, and let me thank you personally for going through so much trouble to write that great step-by-step.

The funny thing is, in menuconfig i am not enabling SCSI at all (or i didn't mean to). However, now that i look at the config file, there seems to be some stuff in there. Maybe i missed a menu somewhere, but i was starting to feel like i had those menus down by heart.

This machine is a simple ABIT BH-6, i have one WD HD attached. Nothing fancy.

I have attached my .config file. I am certainly not so presumptious to be requesting you personally look at it. If someone could tell me where i messed up, Maybe this post will help other newbs like me. Thanks again very much for the help.

[Grogan]

You do have the scsi subsystem enabled, in addition to most of the scsi drivers, as modules. That should not affect your kernel though, if you're not loading them.

You did, however, forget PIIX4 IDE chipset support. You're using generic IDE drivers.

# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX is not set

That still shouldn't prevent your kernel from booting though, just that you probably won't be able to use DMA.

You also said Y to framebuffer support, but did not build a framebuffer driver.

You also build local apic and ioapic support. Does your system support that? Try disabling those.

[Toadie]

I believe i found where all the SCSI stuff was getting in, and i enabled the IDE driver.

I guess i thought if i enabled framebuffer my card (TNT2) would use it. However, it sounds like you are saying that is not the case...the card would have to be listed and selected in order for the framebuffer option to do anything.

Rebuilding now. Appreciate all your help very much.

[BobGuy]

I am trying to build the 2.6.2 kernel

Where did you download that kernel from?

[Grogan]

If your card isn't listed for framebuffer drivers, try the vesa framebuffer. (That's usually what distributions use for their splash screens and crap... because it's compatible with a lot of display hardware)

[Toadie]

Well...seem to be making progress, well, new error anyway. The make make_install is bombing out at this point now:

INSTALL drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.ko
INSTALL fs/xfs/xfs.ko
INSTALL drivers/usb/input/xpad.ko
INSTALL lib/zlib_inflate/zlib_inflate.ko
if [ -r System.map ]; then /sbin/depmod -ae -F System.map 2.6.2; fi

TIA for any help.

[Toadie]

Hi BobGuy:

I dloaded it from kernel.org

[Grogan]

Originally posted by Toadie
Well...seem to be making progress, well, new error anyway. The make make_install is bombing out at this point now:

INSTALL drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.ko
INSTALL fs/xfs/xfs.ko
INSTALL drivers/usb/input/xpad.ko
INSTALL lib/zlib_inflate/zlib_inflate.ko
if [ -r System.map ]; then /sbin/depmod -ae -F System.map 2.6.2; fi

TIA for any help.

That's not bombing out, that looks like a successful completion. The last thing it does, is run the depmod command to build the module dependencies.

[Toadie]

LOL...i guess everything is starting to look like an error msg. woo hooo...time to see if i can get this thing to boot.

Thanks again.

[Toadie]

Crap...machine hung about 50% through the LILO progress bar again. Is there any way to t-shoot a symptom like that?

I guess i will rebuild and see if i missed anything.

[ralpha6]

If /sbin/lilo didn't finish then there's probably something amiss in your lilo.conf file.

[Toadie]

Thanks for the response.

LILO seems to test out ok:

[root@localhost root]# lilo -t
Added 2.6.2 *
Added 2.4.22-10mdk
Added linux-nonfb
Added failsafe
Added floppy
The boot sector and the map file have *NOT* been altered.

could there still be a prob even though it tests ok?

Thx

[ralpha6]

Crap...machine hung about 50% through the LILO progress bar again

What were you talking about then.

Lilo finished with no errors so that part is fine. If you make any changes to your kernel you'll need to run lilo again tho.

[Toadie]

Well, when i would select the new kernel on the LILO screen, the progress bar would make it about half way, then total hang of the machine.

Maybe i have found the problem though, and thanks for your post, it made me look at lilo.conf a little harder.

I had copied-and-pasted the entry for my 2.4 kernel and plugged in 2.6 filenames. The 2.4 entry had a line beginning with "append=" which specified options i don't believe are compatible with this 2.6 kernel, acpi for one.

Giving it another shot now.

[Toadie]

Making progress...i am getting through the LILO screen, but crashing early in the startup process of the kernel.

I get the following error:

mount: none has wrong device number or fs type proc not supported

pidof[62]: mount returned non-zero exit status

Any help appreciated.

[Toadie]

Here's the main entries from my lilo.config. The entry for 2.4.22-10mdk boots up fine..if i choose the 2.6.2 entry, i get the mount error in my previous post:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="2.6.2"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=50
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.2
label="2.6.2"
read-only
root=/dev/hda1
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-10mdk
label="2.4.22-10mdk"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.22-10mdk.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only

TIA.

[Toadie]

Looks like i have hit a wall here. I got around the mount error i posted about earlier by enabling /proc fs support in the kernel. I thought i was all good at that point...however, now i get a supermount error. From what i can google, it looks like this is a known limitation with Mandrake:

http://www.nylug.org/mlist/nylug-tal.../msg00104.html

I have to admit i am not too crazy about having to use Mandrake's kernel...the 2.6 kernel i built following Grogan's step-by-step was practically half the size of the 2.4 kernel that shipped with 9.2. Maybe that was due to efficiency coded into 2.6, i have no clue. Thoughts?

Is there a viable work-around for the supermount issue? If not, is it time for me to check out Slackware? Or would I just be way in over my head with that?

Thanks very much for the help.

[Grogan]

Mandrake is a pretty difficult distribution to build a custom kernel on, because of all the complex shit.

However, your last error is your configuration. You disabled /proc filesystem support, under pseudo filesystems

# CONFIG_PROC_FS is not set

You absolutely need that to be built in.

As for supermount, you don't need it and it won't prevent your kernel from booting.

Type the following while booted with your mandrake kernel.

supermount -i disable

That'll disable supermount in your /etc/fstab file. Then you'll just have to manually mount cdrom and floppy disks, that's all. (e.g. mount /dev/cdrom )

[Cool Canuck]

Toadie, when I do this and get these kind of things happening, it is because of misconfiguring the kernel.

I took a cursory look at your config file. There are many things I would have done different, but that is me. However there are things in there that you don't need and more importantly, things that I think you do need. I don't think the kernel can access the drive with your present settings.

Under IDE, ATA, and ATAPI

Generic PCI IDE Chipset support
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_GENERIC=y

Generic PCI busmaster DMA support
CONFIG_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI=y

Those are a couple that I think you need. There maybe more but I didn't have time. G will correct if I wrong.

Not to worry, we all go through this. It is not easy understanding what all those options do. The help files can be cryptic.

[Toadie]

Thanks Cool Canuck and Grogan.

Grogan's suggestion to disable Supermount took care of that error.

However now I seem to be having issues with NFS.

When the machine is starting up on the 2.6 kernel, i get the following msges:

Starting NFS lockd: lockdsvc: function not implemented

then i get a rash of iptable errors that conclude with:
perhaps ip tables or your kernel needs to be updated.

Finally i get prompted to run the hardware configurator for the cd burner and the mouse.

When i go back to the 2.4 kernel and shut it down, i get shutdown failed for the following services :

NFS Daemon
NFS Mount D
NFS Stat D

I will go ahead and post my latest config if anyone possibly might have a min to take a look.

Thanks for all the help.

-Toad
"whoever said ignorance was bliss never tried Linux"

[ralpha6]

For some reason I thought you were using Slackware with your 2.6 kernel and Mandrake with the 2.4 kernel.

I know when I ran Mandrake, I tried to rebuild the kernel a bunch of times to no avail. From what I can remember, the best way to succeed in rebuilding a kernel under Mandrake is to download the new kernel source from Mandrake not kernel.org. I know it can be done, it's just not very easy with Mandrake. Lots of "gotchas" as you can testify to.

I switched to Slackware and succeeded in rebuilding my kernel on the 2nd try. Slackware is much easier in this aspect in my opinion.

Just my $.02

[Toadie]

Talked me into it...this is nuts....hehe. I probably would have jumped out the window by now if it weren't for all the great help. Thanks again everyone.

Anyone recommend a good mirror for Slackware?

[Cool Canuck]

Here is a patch for the 6.2 kernel which will add Super Mount.
http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/

Here is a list of mirrors for Slackware.
http://www.slackware.com/getslack/

[mlangdn]

Ralph is right - Mandrake kernel source for Mandrake. Supermount is in there and you won't have near as much trouble. Building a kernel in Slack is very east compared to Mandrake. However, that being said, Slack does not have all the bells and whistles that Mandrake has. There are a lot of programs that I got used to in Mandrake that Slack does not include. Being on dial-up, I would have had to spend too much time downloading extras so that Slack was not for me.

I know that Bobguy and Grogan do not like Supermount. Bob says there will be problems down the road - what I do not know, but I like the supermount function. Just call me lazy.

I have found though, that when you build a kernel in Mandrake with the Mandrake source, some /dev permissions get changed - especially if you have a nvidia card. That drove me nuts because OpenGL would not work until I fixed the permissions on the /dev in question.

[Toadie]

Thanks mlangdn.

I am going to give the supermount patch Cool Canuck pointed out one last shot on Mandrake, before i try Slack. I used Grogan's article (again) to apply the patch. I swear, he thought of everything when he wrote that article. I am guessing lots of experience went into that post.

I was going to d-load Slack for the hell of it, but i end up in friggin dep_hell trying to install Bittorrent.

-T

[BobGuy]

I know that Bobguy and Grogan do not like Supermount. Bob says there will be problems down the road - what I do not know, but I like the supermount function.

The big problem with supermount is that one can inadvertantly mount a device twice, and then not be able to umount it, even as root, without doing temporary damage to /dev files.

The easiest solution: rebooting, and remove the cd before it starts the new boot.

Mandrake actually works better with supermount removed from removable devices, but it gives a harmless but annoying "FAILED" message, twice while the kernel is booting up.

To disable the supermount entry in the fstab, open the konsole and do:
$ su -
Password:
# cd /
# supermount -i disable
# mount -a -o remount
# exit
$ exit

K Disk Free is nice GUI utility for mounting and unmounting devices.
K-> Applications-> Monitoring-> KDiskFree

Just wait till the disklight goes out before extracting the CD.

It's your choice as to whether you want to use supermount or not, but now you know why I don't use it.

[BobGuy]

Originally posted by Cool Canuck
Here is a patch for the 6.2 kernel which will add Super Mount.

The 6.2 kernel you say.
I'm ready for it. :joy:

[Walden]

yeah i've been runing the 2.6.2 for about 2 weeks now. stable for me.

[mlangdn]

Tomorrow, I should receive MDK 9.2 in the mail. I can't download ISOs on dial-up, so I but them through Edmunds-Enterprises. The 3 CDs and an Updates CD cost me $9.96 US.

I will disable supermount then and see what it is like.

Time to read some more of my Linux books - Rute and one by DeAnn LeBlanc.