hand-rolled kernels sometimes work, sometimes not

[Robert P. J. Day]

  i'm having a bit of frustration with building and booting to new
kernels i build from the latest git pull.

  not that long ago, i built a new kernel from something like the
2.6.37-rc1 git tree.  i used the (at that time) ubuntu config file as
a starting point and built the new kernel, then (if memory serves)

  * make modules_install
  * make install
  * update-initramfs -c -k <kernel version>
  * update-grub

but when i booted that kernel, what i got was a pitch-black display,
even though it was obvious the system was booting (much disk
activity).  nothing i did could get me a display (virtual consoles
didn't work).  so i gave up and stuck with the shipped ubuntu kernel.

  come 2.6.37-rc5 and i gave it another try, same recipe and, holy
crap, it booted fine, everything worked.  no idea why it was different
but, since then, i've been running off my hand-rolled 2.6.37-rc5+
kernel.

  and today, i figured, let's try it one more time.  2.6.37-rc7 git
pull, go thru the same recipe, reboot and ... blank.  what i get is
two opening lines:

  mounting /dev/pts failed, busy
  ureadahead ... blah blah ...

nothing unusual, what i'm used to, the display goes black, then the
backlight kicks in and ... that's it.  still much disk activity and if
i wait long enough, i can even hear the cute little drum roll as the
gnome desktop gives me my login prompt, but absolutely nothing on the
screen.

  so it's gone from not working, to working, to not working again.  i
used the same kernel config file for this build as for the earlier
working one, so i am at a loss as to what the heck is going on, and
i'm open to suggestions.

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
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