mkinitrd prints bogus error message for module dm_linear

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 2

Situation

mkinitrd results in the following error message:

# mkinitrd -i /tmp/dst -k /boot/image-2.6.16.60-0.58.1-default
Root device:    /dev/system/root (mounted on / as ext3)
...
Cannot determine dependencies of module dm_linear. Is modules.dep up to date?
Cannot determine dependencies of module dm_linear. Is modules.dep up to date?
Driver modules: scsi_mod sd_mod scsi_transport_fc qdio zfcp dm-mod dasd_mod
dasd_diag_mod dm-snapshot linear
...
initrd updated, zipl needs to update the IPL record before IPL!

The error message is triggered by a root file-system that is made up of two concatenated disks. The case of a single 'linear' disk is accounted for but not the case of more than one.
mkinitrd believes it needs to include a module 'dm_linear' which doesn't exist.

Resolution

There's no real problem, mkinitrd succeeds and the resulting initrd boots fine. However the messages might raise some questions or concern. A patch resolving the issue is included in mkinitrd -1.2-106.94.1.

Disclaimer

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