Salix Forums

I installed Salix64 KDE 14.0.1 (I found Xfce 14.0.1 has the same issue) using LUKS+LVM, and I found a problem/issue. The install uses the 3.2.29 kernel while it installs 3.2.45. This difference makes using the mkinitrd_command_generator.sh, as recommended in the Slackware documentation for encrypted drives, not work. It is possible to work around it, and I would expect most people that use encrypted drives could figure it out, but it seems unnecessary. Is there any possibility of getting it straightened out?

David Engel

I don't think there's a solution for that. It's a downside of using the same initrd as in the original 14.0 release. The only workaround I can think of is getting the original 14.0 release, which also installs the 3.2.29 kernel and upgrade your system after installation (including the kernel).

Thanks for the response, gapan. I thought that might be the answer, but I thought I'd check.

As a point of reference for those people attempting this, you can pull up the manpage for mkinitrd and build a command line to generate the initrd from it instead of using the mkinitrd_command_generator.sh script. Roughly, for my situation, it would be something like:
(Note: option items in paratheses; line continuation causes \ - this should be one line)

Meaning:

• -C /dev/sdx2, the encrypted partition (adds encryption processing to initrd)
• -r /dev/myvolumegroup/root, the path to root
• -c, if you need to clear the module tree
• -k 3.2.45, the kernel module tree to use
• -m xfs:ehci-hcd:usb-storage, modules to add to initrd (probably varies by system)
• -f xfs, file system, e.g., xfs, ext4, etc.
• -L turn on LVM (adds LVM modules to initrd)
• -h /dev/myvolumegroup/swap - if using hibernation, point to the swap partition
• -l dvorak, keyboard if using a non-US keyboard layout
• -o /boot/initrd.gz, the output file

It could be simplified from this, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the interested.