[pocket-linux] Kernel panic - Attempted to kill init

[David Horton]

M. Oujesky wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to build my own customized pocket linux, not so exactly by
> the book, with some differencies (single boot/root diskette, busybox).
> I hope, that someone will help me with this problem, although I'm doing
> something not explained in the guide.
> 
> After one heavy hacking night I managed to create a boot diskette with
> custom 2.6.11.2 kernel and compressed root image with busybox 1.0 packed
> with UPX), which is situated after the boot section of diskette (block
> 850 exactly, kernel is booting with ramdisk_start=850 parameter) . I
> managed to kill few error messages, but every time a new appeared. And
> that last is too big for me...
> 
> Well, what is happenig. The grub loads kernel, kernel initializes, find
> and load compressed root image to ramdisk, then throw kernel panic:
> 
> ...
> RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 850
> VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
> Freeing unused kernel memory: foo k freed
> Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init.
> 
> I'm not much familiar with kernel and his error messages, but I suppose
> that anything that kernel calls as init ends before it can do whatever
> is expected to do. I tried passing init= parameter to kernel with
> /bin/sh and /sbin/init but both with the same result.
> 
> I'm thinking about few possibilities about what's wrong.
> 1) the root compressed image is bad (this is not much likely, because I
>    tried standalone root disk with same result)?
> 2) the symlinks to busybox (sh, init etc.) can't be used to be called
>    from kernel (this is too not much likely, because i tried staticaly
>    compiled bash, as in the guide, and with the  bloody same result)?
> 3) the kernel is missing some feature, which I turned off to make him
>    smaller?
> 4) the busybox or bash is compiled when running older kernel (2.6.10
>    which I have in my Debian box), and cannot run with the one on the
>    diskette?
> 5) something else...?
> 
> I'm testing on two boxes, Athlon 650 and AMD 5x86 133, but with no
> difference.
> 
> I really appreciate anything that could help me to solve this. Thanks
> much in advance.
> 
> Regards,
> Mirek

Sounds like a cool project.  I have not experimented too much with 
busybox, but I see that you are having the same problem with BASH.  That 
makes me think it's a kernel problem.  My advice would be to get one of 
the kernel config files from http://pocket-linux.sourceforge.net/ under 
the heading "Kernel Configs & Diskette Images"  Compare this to your 
kernel config and see if it helps.  I also think that the "not syncing" 
message must be significant.  You might see what you can dig up on 
Google for that.  Also, I would not think that a minor difference in 
kernel version would cause this.  2.6.11.2 and 2.6.10 are not that far 
apart.

Good Luck

Dave