From owner-freebsd-current Sun Jul 5 10:19:33 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA29839 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Sun, 5 Jul 1998 10:19:33 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from godzilla.zeta.org.au (godzilla.zeta.org.au [203.15.68.22]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA27768 for ; Sun, 5 Jul 1998 10:19:28 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bde@godzilla.zeta.org.au) Received: (from bde@localhost) by godzilla.zeta.org.au (8.8.7/8.8.7) id DAA07540; Mon, 6 Jul 1998 03:19:29 +1000 Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 03:19:29 +1000 From: Bruce Evans Message-Id: <199807051719.DAA07540@godzilla.zeta.org.au> To: bde@zeta.org.au, mike@smith.net.au Subject: Re: Kernel panic, solved! + question Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG, netchild@wurzelausix.cs.uni-sb.de Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >> >'on generic' is Evil. >> >> I always use it. It works fine, but has no effect unless you boot >> with -a or the kernel can't find a root device in the normal way >> (when it would panic outside of setconf()). Are you using any >> other nonstandard options? > >That's not entirely correct, at least not as I read/experience it. > >If you don't boot with -a, it looks for the first disk on its list (wd, >sd, etc.) and decides that root must be on that disk. This looses for >lots of configurations. Read closer. It only searches when rootdev != NODEV. If rootdev == NODEV, then mountroot would fail if `on generic' were not configured, so `on generic' should at worst help avoid failed mountroots (it only helps much when booting with -a, since the disks in its list are less likely to work than the one booted from). Bruce To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message