[Techtalk] init/kernel parameters trouble

[Conni]

Hi.  Me again.

Laptop still isn't working.  I just haven't really been motivated recently
to poke at it.  I've asked local people with linux clue, and they don't
seem to know, or have any guesses how to fix it, so I thought I'd ask all
of you.

So, I finally managed to get gentoo installed.  When I power up, it goes
to grub, I hit enter, and it loads the kernel and starts init.  Halfway
through the init process, it just stops.  Doesn't kernel panic or
anything; just freezes.

The screen output is this:
Init version 2.78
.
<scroll>
.
*Checking filesystems
fsck 1.33
/dev/hda1: clean
*Mounting local filesystems [ok]
*Mounting USB device filesystems [ok]
*Caching service dependencies [ok]
*Setting system clock to hardware clock [Local Time] [ok]
*Configuring kernel parameters ...

then just sits there.  It will sit there for hours, if I let it.

Using grep, I found that the file that contains "Configuring Kernel
Parameters" is /etc/init.d/bootmisc, and it appears to be calling
/etc/sysctl.conf, which has this sort of thing:
#Disabling packet forwarding
#/some/path/with/net/ipv4 = 0

I don't know if I've compiled something into the kernel that it doesn't
like, or if I've left out something it needs, or if there's something I
need to add to sysctl.conf, or what.  I know debugging this sort of thing
is really tricky without the actual machine, but I don't have anywhere
near enough clue to figure this out.

Thanks,
Conni

-- 
We are the Burgh.  Youns need assimilated.  
			-John Moseman

		  www2.one-eyed-alien.net/~ccovingt