On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 12:35 -0400, Benjamen R. Meyer wrote:
> I'm working on a Sparc system (SunBlade 2000 Desktop Server) that needs
> an initrd image to load (due to having a QLA 2200 SCSI controller); but
> I am having some trouble with the initrd image.
>
> (I had tried the gentoo-sparc list, but it is slow - I'm not getting
> responses - and I need to finish this server by Friday. And the issue
> right now is solely the initrd image.)
>
> The problem I am having is that the kernel is complaining about not
> having the initrd image. I have SILO (sparc equiv of LILO) installed,
> and have told it of the initrd image, but the kernel doesn't seem to
> find it. (SILO reports all is well, so I can only assume it is finding
> the initrd image without a problem.)
>
> My main question comes down to this: I am using the 'genkernel' package
> to build & install the kernel and initrd image. Both show up in /boot.
> How much can I rely on genkernel to build a valid initrd image?

Try "genkernel menuconfig all" to check for a valid kernel config before
genkernel builds it. Refer to genkernel's man-page for further options.

> How can
> I mount the initrd image to verify it has the modules, etc. and verify
> it is a valid image?
>
There is a wiki-entry about it: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Initramfs

Hope this helps.