Beige G3 can't find root after install

[Longman, Bill]

> Am working with a stock Beige G3 300Mhz,  196M ram,  UW SCSI 
> 4G MacOS8.1 and 9G for YDL.
> The SCSI card is an ATTO PSC.  This card is not mentioned 
> specifically in any of YDL's website or any list traffic.  
> But I was able to run the installation kernel and do a 
> complete install (YDL3.01) without a hitch.
> Back to BootX, turned off Ramdisk, set the kernel to the 
> regular (non-boot) version, and set the root partition to sdb6.
> 
> Upon restarting Linux there is a kernel panic:
> VFS: Cannot open root device "sdb6" or 00:00
> Please append a correct "root=" boot option
> Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 00:00
> 
> I found this explanation in the mail list:
> >Your install kernel (8dBOOT) has enough UW support built in. 
> Your boot kernel (8d) does not.
> This seemed consistent with my situation, so I have tried two 
> different BenH kernels  (dev-2.4.23-pre5  and 
> powermac-ow-scsi-...pre5) without any difference.
> 
> I noticed /sbin/modprobe sym53c8xx was invoked on the install 
> kernel; I don't see this on the regular kernel.  Again this 
> seems consistent with the explanation mentioned previously.
> 
> I copied the BenH kernels into the system/linux_kernels 
> folder and invoked them through BootX;  the installation 
> instruction at PPCkernels.org states that the kernel and 
> system.map needs to be copied to the linux partition.   Does 
> anyone know if a lack of system.map would affect mounting root?
> 
> Any other suggestions or ideas would be appreciated

Duane,

I just put together a x86 Gentoo box with just one SCSI disk and I got the
same error. I first thought it was not having the ReiserFS code in the
kernel, but that was already there. The problem was that I didn't have the
SCSI controller for my system in the kernel. Once I added that in, it came
up fine. I'm assuming you do have a "root=/dev/sdb6" line when you boot.

Bill