IIfx kernel panic

Finn Thain

2021-03-27 00:00:02 UTC

Post by Casey Offord
Hello,
I've been trying to get my IIfx booting with 68k Linux. I'm using a
ramdisk (initrd-serconsole from the mac.linux-m68k FTP), kernel file
(vmlinux-4.14.221-mac-backport+), and Penguin 19. I'm getting a kernel
panic when it tries to mount a file system on the ramdisk.

I tried this in QEMU. Launching /sbin/init fails and the kernel panics
with "Attempted to kill init".

When I examined the initrd-serconsole.gz file, I see that /dev is empty.
So I used "root=/dev/ram init=/bin/sh" and I got a prompt:

bash# mount -n -t devtmpfs none /dev
bash# exec /sbin/init
Remounting root file system read-write
EXT4-fs (ram0): warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended
EXT4-fs warning (device ram0): ext4_update_dynamic_rev:796: updating to
rev 1 because of new feature flag, running e2fsck is recommended
EXT4-fs (ram0): re-mounted. Opts:
Starting update
Mounting filesystems:
warning: process `update' used the obsolete bdflush system call
Fix your initscripts?
/proc on /proc type proc (rw)
init: cannot open inittab
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init! exitcode=0x00000100

I didn't dig any deeper. That initrd is 20 years old, and may or may not
work with 20 year old kernels. Who knows?

Post by Casey Offord
I'm going to guess I don't have the right initrd file to run with this
kernel.

The kernel seems to be fine. It works with a busybox initrd I have.

Post by Casey Offord
Can anyone point me to the correct initrd? Or, since I have an A/UX
partition and swap prepared for this install, can I do this without an
initrd?

If you want to install Debian, you should first try the kernel and initrd
from the Debian installer ISO. You can find it here,
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/current/

Post by Casey Offord
Thanks,
Casey