Re: boot disk problems

Eric W. Biederman (ebiederm+eric@npwt.net)
10 Jan 1998 23:17:00 -0600


>>>>> "PR" == Phil Rivard <rivardp@cyberus.ca> writes:

PR> I've been trying to make a boot/root disk. I've read and followed every
PR> step in ramdisk.txt in the kernel Documentation. I 'dd' the kernel and the
PR> ramdisk image to the disk correctly, I rdev'd correctly too. When I reboot
PR> the kernel gets booted properly, the ramdisk mounts and the next message I
PR> get is: unable to open an initial console. I'm no Linux expert, so I'm
PR> sure that I screwed up somewhere, but I haven't found any info on this
PR> problem.

You need a /dev/console. Because the kernel uses the open system call
at boot up to open it.

Personally I think the need for this is a bad hack and someone was
just lazy.

Eric