Kernel 2.6.15-5, udev and Inspiron 6000

[Derek Broughton]

I upgraded the kernel last week.  Big mistake.

2.6.15 came with new initramfs-tools and udev (sans hotplug).  This
coombination made my previous kernel (2.6.12-9) unworkable (because it
seems to need hotplug).

However, 2.6.15 has trouble with my SATA drive:

  ata: 0x1F0 IDE port busy
  ata1: SATA max UDMA/133
  ata1: dev 0 ATAPI, max UDMA/33
  ata1: configured for UDMA/33
  scsi0: ata_piix
  hda: FUJITSU MHV2040A, ATA DISK drive
...
  Begin: Mounting root file system . . .
  Begin: Running /scripts/local-top . . .
  Done
<long pause>
  ALERT! /dev/sda7 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

At which point it drops to a busybox shell.  Strangely, changing /etc/fstab
to point / to /dev/hda7 _still_ gives the same "/dev/sda7 does not exist."
error.

2.6.12 doesn't have the "port busy" message, then:
  ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x1F0 ctl 0x3F6 bmdma 0xBFA0 irq 14
  ata1: dev 0 cfg 49:2b00 82:346b 83:5b29 84:6003 85:3469 86:9a09 87:6003
88:203f
  ata1: dev 0 ATA, max UDMA/100, 78140160 sectors:
  ata1(0): applying bridge limits
  ata1: dev 0 configured for UDMA/100
  scsi0 : ata_piix
    Vendor: ATA       Model: FUJITSU MHV2040A  Rev: 0000
    Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 05
  ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xBFA8 irq 15
  ata2: dev 0 cfg 49:0b00 82:0000 83:0000 84:0000 85:0000 86:0000 87:0000
88:0407

Clearly, 2.6.15 isn't seeing this as a scsi disk.

Has anybody got a fix?

Going back to 2.6.12 was not trivial, as it failed to load many drivers
because it didn't have hotplug.  I had to reinstall hotplug and downgrade
udev.  I still don't have a working wireless connection, as it is failing
to load the ipw-2.3 firmware.
-- 
derek