# [SOLVED] Initramfs disappeared after halting while on i3wm

## roboto

So, I typed halt in LXTerminal while in i3wm. After I turned it on, I noticed a very noticeable decrease in speed of everything on my laptop. I noticed that the initramfs line during boot was not there, instead it said error: ata1: device not ready. 

I had a huge decrease of speed when starting X. Before: 3 seconds. After: 14 seconds. 

Firefox launching. Before: 5 seconds. After: 27 seconds.

Boot time was terrible. Before: 27 seconds. After: Four minutes.

I chrooted into the environment and reinstalled genkernel and recreated initramfs, and update grub, and rebooted.

Still the same.

This is merely one of the reasons why I prefer systemd.

----------

## eccerr0r

So I'm not sure, does the rescue CD boot any different than before?

The only gut feel I have is that you have the wrong IDE driver in the kernel if it wasn't a spontaneous hardware.  Then again not sure why the initramfs disappeared?  Are you using grub2 + grub2-mkconfig?

As an aside I don't quite understand your systemd comment and why you prefer it, or do you mean it sarcastically?

----------

## roboto

I used the official Gentoo minimal installation CD and the boot output was the same.

I haven't configured the kernel at all since I installed it on this laptop. The initramfs problem never occurred until now. 

Yes and no. I'm being sarcastic while blaming OpenRC for breaking initramfs.

----------

## eccerr0r

Could you rule out hardware problems/hard drive failure?  Anything dmesg?

Is ata1 used for your hard drive or CD or ??

----------

## roboto

I'm not sure on how I can test my hard drive. GNOME disks shows no bad sectors.

I literally have no idea where to look into dmesg. Please tell me what to do with dmesg next time. 

https://www.zerobin.net/?cd042683bcd8f1ca#tM7ueshfTnAAAZCHwAGaapvkLxEB8GpsqA4ctyqIjws=

ata1 is my hard drive.

----------

## Hu

OpenRC is very unlikely to spontaneously delete your initramfs.  If it went missing, I would suspect filesystem corruption (possibly induced by failed hard drive sectors).  How old is the drive?  How old is the laptop?  When did you install Gentoo on the laptop?  What is the output of smartctl -a /dev/sda (substitute drive as appropriate)?

----------

## eccerr0r

Your dmesg looks OK other than that spurious

[ 1.984035] ata1: softreset failed (device not ready)

[ 1.984128] ata1: applying PMP SRST workaround and retrying

See if you can find a copy of "smartctl" in smartmontools  - If your system otherwise looks like it's working, you can emerge smartmontools and run

# smartctl -a /dev/sda

Then post the results.

----------

## roboto

```
smartctl -a /dev/sda1

smartctl 6.4 2015-06-04 r4109 [x86_64-linux-4.9.16-gentoo] (local build)

Copyright (C) 2002-15, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===

Device Model:     Seagate ST320LT020-9YG142

Serial Number:    W049CB7Y

LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 05c53a0c5

Firmware Version: 0003TSM1

User Capacity:    320,072,933,376 bytes [320 GB]

Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical

Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm

Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]

ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4

SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s

Local Time is:    Mon Jul 17 20:45:07 2017 CDT

SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.

SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:

Offline data collection status:  (0x00)   Offline data collection activity

               was never started.

               Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.

Self-test execution status:      (   0)   The previous self-test routine completed

               without error or no self-test has ever

               been run.

Total time to complete Offline

data collection:       (    0) seconds.

Offline data collection

capabilities:           (0x73) SMART execute Offline immediate.

               Auto Offline data collection on/off support.

               Suspend Offline collection upon new

               command.

               No Offline surface scan supported.

               Self-test supported.

               Conveyance Self-test supported.

               Selective Self-test supported.

SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)   Saves SMART data before entering

               power-saving mode.

               Supports SMART auto save timer.

Error logging capability:        (0x01)   Error logging supported.

               General Purpose Logging supported.

Short self-test routine

recommended polling time:     (   2) minutes.

Extended self-test routine

recommended polling time:     (  83) minutes.

Conveyance self-test routine

recommended polling time:     (   3) minutes.

SCT capabilities:           (0x303f)   SCT Status supported.

               SCT Error Recovery Control supported.

               SCT Feature Control supported.

               SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10

Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE

  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   120   099   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       3104

  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   099   099   085    Pre-fail  Always       -       0

  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   095   095   020    Old_age   Always       -       5725

  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0

  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   081   060   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       142570607

  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   093   093   000    Old_age   Always       -       6539

 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0

 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   099   099   020    Old_age   Always       -       1668

184 End-to-End_Error        0x0032   100   100   099    Old_age   Always       -       0

187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       3

188 Command_Timeout         0x0032   100   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       166

189 High_Fly_Writes         0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   059   047   045    Old_age   Always       -       41 (Min/Max 30/41)

191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       365

192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       25

193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       243904

194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   041   053   000    Old_age   Always       -       41 (0 19 0 0 0)

195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   055   049   000    Old_age   Always       -       3104

197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

240 Head_Flying_Hours       0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       5716 (16 97 0)

241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       3474722940

242 Total_LBAs_Read         0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       3509725149

250 Read_Error_Retry_Rate   0x0000   100   001   000    Old_age   Offline      -       9092

251 Unknown_Attribute       0x0000   100   001   000    Old_age   Offline      -       668

252 Unknown_Attribute       0x0000   100   001   000    Old_age   Offline      -       61

254 Free_Fall_Sensor        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1

ATA Error Count: 3

   CR = Command Register [HEX]

   FR = Features Register [HEX]

   SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]

   SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]

   CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]

   CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]

   DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]

   DC = Device Command Register [HEX]

   ER = Error register [HEX]

   ST = Status register [HEX]

Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as

DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,

SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Error 3 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 6390 hours (266 days + 6 hours)

  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:

  ER ST SC SN CL CH DH

  -- -- -- -- -- -- --

  40 51 00 ff ff ff 0f  Error: WP at LBA = 0x0fffffff = 268435455

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:

  CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC   Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name

  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ----------------  --------------------

  61 00 08 80 08 80 40 00      00:34:11.838  WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

  61 00 08 00 08 80 40 00      00:34:11.838  WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

  61 00 70 38 26 41 40 00      00:34:11.838  WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

  61 00 f8 40 25 41 40 00      00:34:11.837  WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

  61 00 98 a0 24 41 40 00      00:34:11.836  WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

Error 2 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 6390 hours (266 days + 6 hours)

  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:

  ER ST SC SN CL CH DH

  -- -- -- -- -- -- --

  40 51 00 ff ff ff 0f  Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0fffffff = 268435455

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:

  CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC   Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name

  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ----------------  --------------------

  60 00 08 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:34:07.869  READ FPDMA QUEUED

  60 00 08 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:34:07.859  READ FPDMA QUEUED

  60 00 08 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:34:07.808  READ FPDMA QUEUED

  60 00 10 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:34:07.770  READ FPDMA QUEUED

  60 00 48 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:34:07.738  READ FPDMA QUEUED

Error 1 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 6390 hours (266 days + 6 hours)

  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:

  ER ST SC SN CL CH DH

  -- -- -- -- -- -- --

  40 51 00 ff ff ff 0f  Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0fffffff = 268435455

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:

  CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC   Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name

  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ----------------  --------------------

  60 00 30 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:33:10.504  READ FPDMA QUEUED

  60 00 08 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:33:10.503  READ FPDMA QUEUED

  60 00 08 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:33:10.503  READ FPDMA QUEUED

  60 00 08 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:33:10.503  READ FPDMA QUEUED

  60 00 08 ff ff ff 4f 00      00:33:10.502  READ FPDMA QUEUED

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1

Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error

# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      6336         -

# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      6326         -

# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         1         -

# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         1         -

# 5  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         1         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1

 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS

    1        0        0  Not_testing

    2        0        0  Not_testing

    3        0        0  Not_testing

    4        0        0  Not_testing

    5        0        0  Not_testing

Selective self-test flags (0x0):

  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.

If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

```

This looks like my hard drive is failing?

[Moderator edit: added [code] tags to preserve output layout. -Hu]

----------

## eccerr0r

It's had trouble in the past but not exactly "dead"...

The hard drive has thought it has gotten close or has exceeded its designed load cycles:

```
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 120 099 006 Pre-fail Always - 3104

7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 081 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 142570607

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 243904 
```

These should be "acceptable" but have shown some signs of wear.

How does the disk benchmark with hdparm,

# hdparm -t /dev/sda

?

[Moderator edit: added [code] tags to preserve output layout. -Hu]

----------

## roboto

hdparm -t /dev/sda1

/dev/sda1:

 Timing buffered disk reads: 266 MB in  3.02 seconds =  88.07 MB/sec

----------

## Jaglover

Put your dmesg into pastebin and provide the link, please.

----------

## roboto

Why?

The link works just fine.

----------

## eccerr0r

 *roboto wrote:*   

> hdparm -t /dev/sda1
> 
> /dev/sda1:
> 
>  Timing buffered disk reads: 266 MB in  3.02 seconds =  88.07 MB/sec

 

Is this from normal boot or from a boot CD?

This seems healthy...

----------

## roboto

This is on normal boot.

----------

## roboto

Nevertheless, here is the link:

https://paste.pound-python.org/show/l8ZmCqSbfVq6LCpqxcPr/

----------

## NeddySeagoon

roboto,

Did you do a kernel update with genkernel and fill up /boot ?

Its possible that the new kernel would have been written but not the initrd, du to lack of space.

You missed the error, updated grub and the initrd for the new kernel is missing.

What does 

```
ls -l /boot 
```

 show?

Your HDD looks healthy from smartctl.  

Head load cycles may or may not be something to worry about.

----------

## Jaglover

 *roboto wrote:*   

> Nevertheless, here is the link:
> 
> https://paste.pound-python.org/show/l8ZmCqSbfVq6LCpqxcPr/

 

You are booting the kernel from June 23, where is the new kernel you said you built?

----------

## eccerr0r

Hmm... this looks suspicious

[   47.116630] CE: hpet increased min_delta_ns to 20115 nsec

[   47.116630] CE: hpet increased min_delta_ns to 30172 nsec

[   47.116630] CE: hpet increased min_delta_ns to 45258 nsec

[   47.116630] CE: hpet increased min_delta_ns to 67887 nsec

[   47.116630] CE: hpet increased min_delta_ns to 101830 nsec

[   47.120657] CE: hpet increased min_delta_ns to 152745 nsec

I recall one of my machines having problems with hpet and forced to use another timebase.  With the defective hpet, the machine was running real slow.  But again this should not have happened spontaneously.

----------

## roboto

```
ls -l /boot

total 20244

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  103373 Jun 23 12:22 config-4.9.16-gentoo

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  100599 Jun 21 12:07 config-4.9.16-gentoo.old

drwxr-xr-x 6 root root    4096 Jun 25 23:13 grub

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1333604 Jun 25 23:13 initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-4.9.16-gentoo

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2731576 Jun 23 12:22 System.map-4.9.16-gentoo

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2692472 Jun 21 12:07 System.map-4.9.16-gentoo.old

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6919152 Jun 23 12:22 vmlinuz-4.9.16-gentoo

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6829040 Jun 21 12:07 vmlinuz-4.9.16-gentoo.old

```

Jaglover, 

I haven't turned on this laptop since June 23. I didn't build a new kernel, I used genkernel for initramfs, the manual configuration method was done by me during the installation, that's all.

Now, I remember, I did reconfigure the kernel and recompile it back when I was having wifi problems and sound problems. That might explain the *.old files in /boot.

I see initramfs in /boot, why isn't it doing anything?

And I'm never going to upgrade the kernel. The version on mine works just fine. So let it be that way.

----------

## roboto

How do I suppress hpet if it's slowing down my machine?

----------

## eccerr0r

Does your old kernel exhibit the slow boot problem too?

I highly doubt the hpet problem would spontaneously show up.  You could try on your kernel commandline 

clocksource=pit

or

hpet=disable

But I kind of doubt that this is the problem if it was working before, plus if your kernel clock remains correct.  I had clearly broken hardware so it worked, sort of.  The PIT is the pits as a timesource however, but it was way more accurate than a broken hpet.

It still does not explain the initramfs, which I'm at a total loss at.

----------

## roboto

No, there was no slow boot on my previous kernel.

both clocksource=pit or hpet=disable have no noticeable effect upon my exceptionally slow speed.

Aside from all this, I just happened to go into htop and noticed a process taking up 10% of the CPU all the time.

Process: kworker/1:3

Does this mean anything?

EDIT: And I noticed a few other things take up more RAM than usual. i.e. htop itself took up 7 MB of RAM instead of 3.

----------

## eccerr0r

If the old kernel worked and the new kernel is going bonkers I'd do a diff of the .configs.

Kworker is a internal kernel thread...so something you did is causing to work the kernel harder than normal.  Is it due to your wifi interrupts?  

cat /proc/interrupts

Any lines there with very large numbers after a fresh boot with the afflicted kernel?

----------

## roboto

```
cat /proc/interrupts 

           CPU0       CPU1       

  0:       2204      32931   IO-APIC   2-edge      timer

  1:         13        193   IO-APIC   1-edge      i8042

  8:          0          2   IO-APIC   8-edge      rtc0

  9:          0          1   IO-APIC   9-fasteoi   acpi

 12:          0          2   IO-APIC  12-edge      i8042

 14:          0          0   IO-APIC  14-edge      pata_atiixp

 15:          0          0   IO-APIC  15-edge      pata_atiixp

 16:       3227     722441   IO-APIC  16-fasteoi   ohci_hcd:usb2, snd_hda_intel:card2

 17:         42       2527   IO-APIC  17-fasteoi   ohci_hcd:usb3, ohci_hcd:usb5

 18:          0          0   IO-APIC  18-fasteoi   ohci_hcd:usb4, ohci_hcd:usb6

 20:          0          2   IO-APIC  20-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb1

 22:        450       8494   IO-APIC  22-fasteoi   ahci[0000:00:12.0]

 26:         33       1071   PCI-MSI 606208-edge      radeon

 27:         95       1602   PCI-MSI 4718592-edge      enp9s0

NMI:          0          0   Non-maskable interrupts

LOC:      87934      70311   Local timer interrupts

SPU:          0          0   Spurious interrupts

PMI:          0          0   Performance monitoring interrupts

IWI:          0          0   IRQ work interrupts

RTR:          0          0   APIC ICR read retries

RES:      40097      33007   Rescheduling interrupts

CAL:       4241       7679   Function call interrupts

TLB:       4139       7624   TLB shootdowns

THR:          0          0   Threshold APIC interrupts

DFR:          0          0   Deferred Error APIC interrupts

MCE:          0          0   Machine check exceptions

MCP:          1          1   Machine check polls

ERR:          1

MIS:          0

PIN:          0          0   Posted-interrupt notification event

PIW:          0          0   Posted-interrupt wakeup event

```

Ok, I think downgrading my .config to the .old one will not work because I configured and compiled the kernel many times a while ago when I was having problems with my laptop. I might have configured the wifi a couple of configs back. 

Should I just go ahead and disable everything that I remember enabling before (wifi, sound, touchpad)?

----------

## eccerr0r

Is this a fairly fresh boot?  IRQ16 seems to have a lot of events if it's a fresh reboot.

What's connected to your usb2?

```
lsusb|grep "Bus 002"
```

Did you play a lot of music this boot?  If not and this is a fresh boot, I'd start with investigating sound and why it's doing interrupts.

----------

## roboto

```
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

```

I don't have anything on my USB ports except for my mouse. I have a TP-Link USB wireless interface that I plug in sometimes when I need to carry this laptop to places. This thread elaborates on it: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1065168-highlight-.html

No I didn't play sound at all. Although I have snd_hda_intel and all of its dependencies enabled in the .config, I still don't get sound out of the speakers because I don't know how to configure Pulseaudio for Firefox. I followed the Gentoo official documentation on that, but it turned out to be a failure. I'm actually fine without sound since I just use my other laptop for music.

----------

## eccerr0r

Okay looks like one thing to investigate is sound.  Disable it or figure out how to get it to work (probably should belong in another thread...)

On that other thread you mention sound works...so I'm a bit confused.

There should be a few interrupts per second as you play sound, but it shouldn't be interrupt storming... and if you're not playing sound, it should not have interrupts.

----------

## roboto

Sound worked when I made a test sound on alsamixer. I failed setting up sound on Firefox so none came out when I played youtube.   :Sad: 

----------

## eccerr0r

Hmm... Yes the pulseaudio vs alsa issue is one thing, but it should not be the source of the interrupts.  Firefox-52 should still be able to be built with ALSA support so I'm surprised it doesn't work if you built it with the default USE flags, but there's a lot of ways to shoot oneself in the foot.

Is sound still working?

This may look confusing but here my sound interrupt on my computer has only generated less than 2000 interrupts after 20 minutes uptime - that is with firefox loading but not using it for sound:

```
 29:        425        224        432        514  IR-PCI-MSI 442368-edge      snd_hda_intel:card0

```

----------

## roboto

To me, sound doesn't really matter if it's from this laptop because I really don't do mainstream tasks on it.

So should I just go ahead and disable SND_HDA_INTEL and its dependencies to see if it helps?

----------

## eccerr0r

Yes, or blacklist it if you have it as a module.  At least just as an experiment.

----------

## roboto

There were some changes after I disabled SND_HDA_INTEL:

1) kworker/1 stopped taking up 10% of the CPU

2) Same slow speed because of no initramfs.

I will try to regenerate initramfs after this post.

----------

## roboto

I booted into the Gentoo minimal CD, mounted the hard drive, mounted the necessary filesystems, and chrooted into it. I reinstalled genkernel, removed the existing initramfs from /boot, and generated a new one.

I exited the chroot, unmounted everything, and rebooted.

Still no initramfs.

EDIT: I noticed a new line show up in dmesg:

```
[   4.845715] random: crng init done
```

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## eccerr0r

Well for initramfs to load, there needs to be two things:

1 - the kernel needs to be enabled to use initramfs (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD).  

2 - bootloader needs to load or tell the kernel to load (EFI) the initramfs.

Perhaps these were not set?

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## roboto

The menuentry parameters in GRUB for initramfs is correct.

But... CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD depends on the disabled CONFIG_BROKEN that of which I couldn't find anywhere in the .config.

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## eccerr0r

It says BROKEN or not FRV ... which is a bit odd because neither are defined, and since neither are defined, initrd should always be available?

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## Hu

roboto: please pastebin a current copy of your kernel configuration.  Please also describe how you determined that it depends on BROKEN (since, as eccerr0r noted, this is only half the dependency).  If you saw it while using the kernel configuration tool, that tool should have showed the full dependency statement.  If I recall correctly, menuconfig even shows the current value of each symbol, so you can manually evaluate the truth expression.

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## roboto

Here is my .config: https://paste.pound-python.org/show/JiryI52y42VDRawfZ7Vt/

I determined that CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD depends on CONFIG_BROKEN through the menuconfig / button. I don't see any CONFIG_FRV too.

I am going on vacation today, so you won't get a response from me for about a week.

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## Hu

That config says that initramfs support is present in the kernel.  Going with eccerr0r's comments farther up, that would suggest the bootloader is not instructing the kernel to use the initramfs (and that the kernel does not have an adequate initramfs built in).

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## eccerr0r

What if you typed in the initramfs and kernel/linux commands manually into grub / grub2 shell (still not quite sure which you're using...)

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## roboto

Back.

How do I make GRUB2 properly instruct the kernel to load the initramfs?

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## eccerr0r

Get to the command line, I think it's "c" - you may need to type a password if you set it up (command lines are a "security hole").

I believe then you can just run the commands at the grub> prompt:

set root=(hd0,1)  ### change to where your BOOT partition lies, not root partition.

linux /path/to/kernel/in/BOOT/partition.vmlinuz root=xxxxx real_root=xxxxx init=xxxx etc. - what you usually use

initrd /path/to/initramfs.gz

boot

This should go load the kernel and initramfs, and see what it does now?

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## roboto

I followed your instructions, no change and no initramfs appeared.

I tried adding init=/sbin/init to my linux parameters, no change either.

I also tried adding init=/boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-4.9.16-gentoo to linux parameters, it took me to a rescue shell after I booted.

For the initrd parameters, I put in the initramfs file. The file didn't end with .gz, maybe this is something to worry about?

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## eccerr0r

 *roboto wrote:*   

> I followed your instructions, no change and no initramfs appeared.
> 
> 

 

Uh... it should give you two lines immediately after pressing 'enter' - one loading the kernel, other loading the initramfs.  Then it should initiate your kernel spew.  Unless your disk is so fast you can't see them (probably with ssd's...)

 *Quote:*   

> I tried adding init=/sbin/init to my linux parameters, no change either.
> 
> 

 

It should be default.  No need to do init=xxxx unless you're using systemd.

 *Quote:*   

> I also tried adding init=/boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-4.9.16-gentoo to linux parameters, it took me to a rescue shell after I booted.
> 
> 

 

Wait - you got a rescue shell?  This means you ARE using your initramfs after all.  The files visible in that shell is pretty empty right? That would be the initramfs.

 *Quote:*   

> For the initrd parameters, I put in the initramfs file. The file didn't end with .gz, maybe this is something to worry about?

 

No, initramfs filename does not need to be named anything special, as long as the "magic header" placed by the compressor is there.

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## roboto

 :Shocked: 

I already have an initramfs working? Strange, I don't see any sign of an initramfs in dmesg. It was there before.

If initramfs *is* actually working, I'll just mark this as solved.

But now I know not to touch OpenRC while on an X session, otherwise, things will go different than I anticipated. 

Thank you for your time.   :Smile: 

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## eccerr0r

You should see

```
Unpacking initramfs...
```

in your dmesg.  If this is not showing up and you get you rescue shell that's not your normal storage root device, then this is still a mystery... 

Well, updating a system while using it is always a gamble, though I would think that openrc/systemd/... init systems should be just fine while you're in the GUI.   If you're worried about the initramfs, any emerge should not touch it, short of genkernel and/or grub/bootloader updates.

And you still have your speed issue?  I suppose now it should be on a different thread if initramfs isn't the actual problem, but yeah, not out of the woods yet!

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## roboto

I found "Unpacking initramfs ..." in my dmesg.

I will put the speed issue in a new thread.

Many thanks.

----------

