UbuntuKarmic

This page should be used to collect information on how to use the current Ubuntu version 9.10 Karmic Koala with coLinux.

Kernel Version

The mountall program used in Ubuntu Karmic uses /proc/self/mountinfo to ensure partitions are mounted properly. This file has been introduced by the linux kernel version 2.6.26. However, even the coLinux 0.80 development branch uses version 2.6.25 and therefore not provides this file, which causes mountall to report the following error and to stop the boot process:

mountall:/proc: unable to mount: Device or resource busy
mountall:/proc/self/mountinfo: No such file or directory
mountall start/spawned, process 787
mountall: root filesystem isn't mounted
init: mountall main process (787) terminated with status 1
General error mounting filesystems.
A maintenance shell will now be started.
CONTROL-D will terminate this shell and re-try.

So far I guess there is no solution but to wait for a coLinux kernel refresh. Just in case I'm wrong, I asked the mountall maintainers for an alternative solution.

Experimental coLinux kernel 2.6.26.8

Thanks to the coLinux mailing list I discovered that there is an experimental coLinux kernel for download. According to the author, this kernel is widely untested, but seems to run quite well. In my case, the above error message disappeared, the new modules were installed into the Karmic file system, but then the boot process hang:

NET: Registered protocol family 17
Using IPI Shortcut mode
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /devices/serio0/input/input0
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 148k freed

If anybody has suggestions on this issue, just update this page. Thank you!

• Those binaries don't have SQUASHFS, which is used to create a ram disk with initrd.gz. This ram disk is essential to the boot process.
• [Update] Squashfs has been added to the modules, but the behavior remains the same.

./2.6.26.8-co-0.8.0/kernel/fs/squashfs
./2.6.26.8-co-0.8.0/kernel/fs/squashfs/squashfs.ko

Important: The automatic modules update script only seems to update the modules for the same kernel version, if the corresponding directoy under /lib/modules is not present at all. This means you have to delete this directory and reboot for the files to be updated.

The latest experimental coLinux kernel 2.6.33 from Mr. Nestler manages to boot 9.10.