Re: [tlug] Kernel panic

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Brian Chandler writes:

 > Plenty (gigabytes) of space, so I deleted the empty file. Then /bin/sh 
 > says it can't find mkinitrd.

It would be in /sbin/mkinitrd or /usr/sbin/mkinitrd, most likely.  You
may need to install it separately; it's not installed by default in my
(now ancient) Gentoo or Debian etch systems, nor is yaird.  [[ Aside to
Members of l'Ancien Regime: Sad, isn't it?  Not just a Linux distro
lacking the ability to reproduce, but a whole flock of castrati!  Stop
snickering, ya damn BSDers! ]]

 > I still don't understand why there isn't some sort of default procedure 
 > that simply reinstalls whatever bits are necessary to get the same 
 > vanilla system running.

Point the First: you *do* have the vanilla system running from the
live CD.

Point the Second: what you need to get the vanilla system running is
the (whole) vanilla system, that's what "vanilla" means.  If you have
something more than the vanilla system installed, just installing the
vanilla bits will very likely break it by overwriting something, as
vanilla systems often have only basic versions of basic utilities and
libraries.  This is a no-win situation.

Point the Third: Unless *you* truncated that initrd, something in the
install or upgrade process did it (nothing else is at all likely to
touch an initrd).  "Just reinstalling the bits" would truncate it
again....

Points 2 & 3 imply that Point 1 is the appropriate solution.