I am trying to install Linux (Debian) on a new laptop. This requires special care because the laptop keyboard needs a kernel patch (and I have not compiled a kernel for about 10 years). Also, because 32-bit UEFI.
What I did was:
- Using a Debian netinst USB drive to be able to mount,
- On the same drive, install a minimal Debian system (via debootstrap) on the second partition,
- Use the functional Grub from the first partition to boot the kernel on the second one.
Up to this point, everything work. The second partition contains the custom kernel, so even my keyboard is recognized!
But, the problem is that on the second partition, I am stuck in the initramfs (in which I included a busybox
shell). I loaded (manually) the required modules (sg
, usb_storage
, scsi_mod
, libata
) to see the USB drive (containing the debootstrap) and the internal hard drive (to install to). The dmesg
buffer contains lines such as
[time] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[time] sd 1:0:0:0 [sdb] number of blocks etc.
I am typing this by hand from the screen of the not-yet-functional laptop, so I am unable to reproduce the whole log! There are also corresponding lines for sda
. This hints that the /dev/sda*
and /dev/sdb*
block devices should be present; however, they are not, and even when I mknod
them, they are not functional:
(initramfs) mount /dev/sdb2 /usb
mount: mounting /dev/sdb2 on /usb failed: No such file or directory
Also, for a simpler example, fdisk
does not see /dev/sdb
.
I must have missed something really simple, but what ?
Edit: Yes, I missed something really simple, which is the ext4
module. Fixed. Mod delete?
mkdir -p /media/sdb
and thenmiunt -t auto /dev/sdb /media/sdb
. Does that work?man 2 mount
.