Kernel 2.6.0 Steps to reproduce: If you boot with a bad root= option to the kernel, the kernel will panic. Preferable alternatives to this would inquire for a valid root partition, rather than panic. Or, better still, inspect the available system devices for potentially valid root partitions and prompt the user to select one of them. I think in almost all contexts, some sort of failsafe and user interaction prior to a panic would be preferable.
That is just the brightest idea I ever saw this month. We can't even count how much people is getting the dreaded "unable to mount root fs" error for a kernel panic. Especially with 2.6 (google reports almost 3000 links). A new alternative for troubleshooting this error would be much appreciated. More error message at least, or even better a choice to select something, but not a kernel panic. (p.s. I can't change the severity of this bug, but if you are the owner of the post or a moderator, please upgrade it at least to normal, not low) Thank you
Modifying Severity, per Zurd's comment.
FWIW, Andy Whitcroft posted a resolution to part of this quite recently, http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=114667485101796&w=2, and Jan Engelhardt responded with the other half. I will see if I can find their BugMe IDs and add them to this bug. If they want to reference this bug # in subsequent posts, it might help in the effort for inclusion. I'm going to drop the priority back to low, though, it's not a bug, it's a request for a new feature, really. Thanks, Nish
Apparently Andy's patch is in -mm. In any case, it's rather unreasonable to offer user input at this point in the boot process. Andy's (or Jan's) patch gets it as close as it seems like it's likely too, where the user can at least see what they did wrong. Thanks, Nish