I'd like to rebuild the kernel and 'initrd' for a Knoppix 3.8 (specifically, I would like to build a 2.6 kernel with HZ set to 100, and compile for '586 opcodes).
I tried installing a Knoppix 3.8 system to disk, 'apt-get update', 'apt-get install synaptic', installing the kernel source, 'make oldconf', and following my nose; eventually I got as far as a 'vmlinuz' which I put on the CD in place of the 'linux' file in the isolinux directory.

But when I booted the thing (with qemu under Windows ), I got a complaint that it could not load 'cloop', as a consequence could not mount 'KNOPPIX', and I got dropped into the (very) limited function maintenance shell.

What should I do ?

I take it that I don't really need to remake the 'initrd'; the existing one should work just fine for my purposes. But if I did want to remake the 'initrd', what would I do for that ?