Kernel 5.15.79 compiled with vmd.ko builtin

Sometime ago, Ramachandra Iyer purchased a new HP laptop, but found that EasyOS and some of the pups would not recognize the NVME SSD at early bootup. This meant that unable to install any of these distros to the internal drive.

He is able to boot from a USB-stick, and the NVME SSD is recognized after bootup, which does seem to indicate that a kernel module is required to be loaded. I searched online and found some posts that indicate the culprit is the 'vmd.ko' module, for example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/lxx54z/arch_linux_not_detecting_nvme_storage_on_boot/

I posted to the forum, asking him to test if vmd.ko gets loaded:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=73525#p73525

Other linux distributions are able to copy a kernel module into the initrd, and it will be loaded at early bootup. EasyOS does not load modules in the initrd, and relies on a big kernel with all required drivers to detect the drives being builtin to the kernel.

I have compiled the 5.15.79 kernel with vmd.ko builtin. This does not guarantee to fix Ramachandra Iyer's problem, but from online reading it does seem likely. Keeping the fingers crossed that it does.

Device Drivers > PCI support > PCI controller drivers
 <*> Intel Volume Management Device Driver    CONFIG_VMD 

Easy 4.5.2 will be released very soon.  

Tags: easy