Bug 87354 – Alpha install guide is a bit ambiguous on devfs

• Product: [OLD] Docs-user
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Damon Smith 2005-03-30 16:52:06 UTC]

I installed the alpha-sources kernel on an es40, and I the install guide seems to suggest using devfs, not udev.  
The problem is the install guide doesn't say to emerge devfsd, and doesn't say to add noudev and devfs to the kernel args (not sure if that's always necessary).  

This means that the new kernel cant find the disk device files, and wont boot.
I know that your average jo isn't going to be installing on an alpha, but the rest of the install guide works a charm on this fairly strange architecture, so I think it's worth adding to the notes, just to make them perfect.

I think this should go into section 9: installing necessary system tools.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. install linux on alpha as per install guide
2. reboot into new 2.4.21-alpha-r17 kernel
3. 

Actual Results:  
kernel can't find disk device files, because devfsd isn't installed.

Expected Results:  
booted normally.

[Comment 1 SpanKY 2005-03-30 17:14:32 UTC]

added a note about emerging devfsd when talking about enabling /dev file system options in the kernel

[Comment 2 Sven Vermeulen (RETIRED) 2005-03-31 09:26:27 UTC]

Is this really needed? I.e. isn't devfsd part of the system (emerge system) due to:

"""
default-linux/alpha/2005.0/2.4/virtuals:virtual/dev-manager  sys-fs/devfsd
"""

Also, isn't udev the way to go? The missing .devfsd stuff might be due to bug 87117...

[Comment 3 SpanKY 2005-03-31 10:11:33 UTC]

well, all our stages are 2.6 stages now :)

that means that they'll have udev, and switching their profile won't cause portage to pull in devfsd if udev is already installed ...

if there's a 'howto do 2.4 with 2005.0' guide, then we can move this info there ...