What is this "root=LABEL=/" stuff?

[Douglas Phillipson]

Steve wrote:
> Does anyone know what kernel option allows the kernel to recognise 
> partition labels ? I had recompiled a stock kernel earlier this week and 
> had the exact same problem - after compile and reboot the kernel no longer 
> recognised root=LABEL=/ as a valid option and I had to replace this with 
> the physical root device in fstab and grub.conf
> 
> The drives are definatly labeled and all I can think of is that there must 
> be an option somewhere in the kernel to tell it to recognise device 
> labels. Anyone know if this is the case and how to re-enable it ?
> 
Yes, I'm still having the problem.  Running e2label /dev/sda2 yeilds "/" 
and my fstab says:

LABEL=/        /     ext3    defaults        1 1

So they apparently match but Still won't boot unless I change the 
menu.lst to /dev/hda2

Can anyone shed some light on this issue?

Thanks

Doug P