[solved] Re: usb-stick accessible, but doesn't boot

[clemens fischer]

clemens fischer wrote:

> On Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:29:15 +0100 clemens fischer wrote:
> 
>> My USB-stick (trekstore, identifies as "USB DISK SMI Corporation") is
>> sliced using sade(8), labelled using bsdlabel, accessible using "mount
>> /dev/da0s1a /mnt/usb", it has kernel and world, but doesn't boot.
> 
> The problem had nothing to do with kernel features or setup, except for
> etc/fstab.  I had a what I thought quick&simple md for /var: "md /var
> mfs rw,-s100M,noatime 0 0", but this doesn't account for all the preset
> stuff in /var needed to run a system.
> 
> The current version looks like:
> 
>  # /etc/fstab
>  #
>  /dev/ad6s2b none    swap sw 0 0
>  /dev/da0s1a /       ufs  rw,noatime 1 1
>  /dev/da0s1g /home   ufs  rw,noatime,noexec 0 0
>  /dev/da0s1f /usr    ufs  rw,noatime 0 0
>  md          /tmp    mfs     rw,-s24M,noatime 0 0
>  md          /var/run        mfs     rw,-s4M,noatime 0 0
>  md          /var/log        mfs     rw,-s32M,noatime 0 0
>  #
>  proc /proc procfs rw 0 0
> 
> Of course the directory structure had been setup with "make
> DESTDIR=/mnt/usb/ufs distrib-dirs distribution".

I am very sorry for this inaccurate information.  As it turns out, only
the GENERIC kernel is bootable, my custom configuration doesn't.  On the
bright side, this indicates some feature missing from my normally very
lean kernels, nothing is kaputt beyond repair.  I'll just have to find
out which module just has to be in the kernel to make it boot from an
USB stick.

-c