Had to hack new-kernel script in mkinitrd to boot from USB after updating kernel

[Roger Heflin]

Paul Johnson wrote:
> Dear Everybody:
> 
> I have a small fleet of external USB hard disks with Fedora and I have
> the graduate students boot their windows machines from these external
> drives in order to do some actual work (as opposed to playing
> Minesweeper).  It is no trouble to install these systems on external
> USB since the improvements in F7 for that purpose, but when the kernel
> is updated, the mkinitrd stuff does not end up getting all of the
> right modules loaded.  I have to insert the additional options
> "--preload=ehci-hcd --preload=usb-storage --preload=sd_mod " In order
> to make this work.  See the patch below.   After installing this
> special new version of the program "new-kernel-pkg", then kernel
> updates go smoothly.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1. am I the only one in the world running Fedora from an external
> drive these days?  If not, why aren't the other guys commenting on
> this?
> 
> 2. I wish the new-kernel-pkg script would accept command line options
> for additional required modules, and somehow the system would know the
> modules it needs.  I have a feeling that such a procedure is already
> in place, but somehow it was broken when I built these USB drives.
> Know what I mean?
> 
> pj
>

Paul,

Anything in /etc/modprobe.conf a certain way will be included.

Something like this:
alias scsi_hostadapter1 crap
alias scsi_hostadapter2 junk

Will get an error on the mkinitrd because it cannot find the modules crap and 
junk, so replacing crap and/or junk with what you want will work just fine.   It 
will work out all modules that crap and junk depend on, so you won't have to put 
those modules in.

                            Roger