[K12OSN] Custom kernel for thin clients

[Patrick Fleming]

Hi all,

My office got a new Dell Optiplex 360(?) and I haven't been able to get 
it to boot yet. At first it behaved liked the year old Dell Optiplex 
requiring the NIC=tg3 entries in lts.conf and the pxelinux.cfg/00-01.... 
files. Since it still was failing even with the NIC driver lines I 
thought that I could just compile a new kernel - I think I grabbed it 
from kernel.org (maybe that's my mistake). I compiled the kernel and 
pointed this machine to the new kernel in /tftpboot/. I then had to 
unpack the initramfs and rename the /lib/modules/<version>/ directory 
and copy the modules for the new kernel into the directory structure.
It all works until I get a kernel panic about not being able to mount 
root. The errors on the screen are that it tried ext2 cramfs iso9660. 
Any idea what I'm missing? I have nfs modules included but there is no 
mention of trying to use nfs to mount root.

Is there an easier way to make the initrd for the clients? This machine 
started as K12LTSP-6.0.0 install and still has some Fedora rpms 
installed although the system now is primarily CentOS 5.3. (The Fedora 
rpms are at higher release versions than the equivalent CentOS rpms, I 
haven't had the chance to run oldpackage on all my packages and if it 
aint broke I don't try to break it)

I spent four and a half hours fighting this yesterday - I'm further than 
I was but even more stuck at the moment.

Thanks in advance (and happy Father's Day to all the fathers on the list)
Patrick