Kernel panic no init found after installing Saucy

[Nils Kassube]

Tom H wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 12:45 AM, Nils Kassube <kassube at gmx.net> 
wrote:
> > Colin Law wrote:
> >> Freeing unused kernel memory: 864k freed
> >> Write protecting the kernel text: 6232k
> >> Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 2500k
> >> NX-protecting the kernel data 4008k
> >> Failed to execute /init
> >> Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found
> >> 
> >> I can see that initrd.img exists and is a link to
> >> boot/initrd.img-3.10.0.6-generic which is 17.1MB
> > 
> > The message "no init found" probably means that there is no
> > executable "init" in the initrd. You can check it with these
> > commands in a terminal:
> > 
> > mkdir /tmp/test-initrd
> > cd /tmp/test-initrd
> > cat /PATH/TO/YOUR/INITRD | gunzip | cpio -i
> > ls -l init
> > 
> > That should extract the contents of the initrd and show the "init"
> > script (or at least that's what it does on my 12.04 machine).
> 
> There's an "/init" shell script on an initramfs but this isn't the
> "init" that's missing. You can use "lsinitramfs" to peak into an
> initrd created by initramfs-tools without unpacking it. If you do
> choose to unpack it it's better to pipe to "cpio -id
> --no-absolute-filenames".

Interesting stuff - I didn't know about lsinitramfs. Thanks for the 
pointer.

> It's "/sbin/init" on the root filesystem that's not being found,
> usually because the "root=..." on the kernel cmdline is incorrect, the
> scsi driver of "/" isn't loaded, or the driver of the filesystem of
> "/" isn't loaded.

I thought the /init script was missing because the kernel panic seemed 
to be at a very early part of the boot process. But if the root fs isn't 
found, shouldn't there be an appropriate error message?


Nils