[CentOS] custom kernel cant find label /

Wed Jun 18 17:27:39 UTC 2008
John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com>

Karanbir Singh wrote:
> Jerry Geis wrote:
>> I installed centos 4.6 on a USB thumbdrive.
>> It installed and booted after install.
>>
>> I then put a custom kernel on, build it as I should,
>> on rebooting and selecting my kernel to load from grub I it starts up 
>> and all
>> and the last error I get is:
>>
>> label / not found.
>>
>> What went wrong?
>
> I'd guess your boot line has something like "root=LABEL=/"
> and you dont have a filesystem which is marked as label = /
>
> To start, you could either label a filesystem as '/' or, you can just 
> change that root= line to point at a real filesystem.


what WOULD be the 'real device' in the case of a USB thumbdrive?     
since its the boot device, would it necessarily be enumerated first, 
hence always /dev/sda ?  or would it be after any other /dev/sd? that 
happen to be present on the system, which would mean that its device 
name is quite unpredictable?

OTOH, using LABEL=/  could be very problematic if there are any OTHER 
devices present with a filesystem that has LABEL=/  ... I'd wonder if 
you wouldn't want to use LABEL=USBROOT or some such (and label the USB 
stick accordingly).