Boot Problems :(
 

I'm experimenting with making my own 'boot ramdisk' and I get
the error message 'Warning: Unable to open initial console' or
something along those lines after the kernel initialises and
attempts to execute init.

I'm loading the kernel w/ loadlin with the following...

loadlin c:\bzImage root=/dev/ram initrd=c:\ramdisk.gz

My kernel is the same kernel I use for 'normal' bootup
(which works btw).

The ramdisk image was created on a loop device using the following...

mke2fs -b 1024 -m 0 ramdisk.img

and contains the following directory structure...

/bin
echo
sleep
ash

/sbin
init
shutdown
halt

/dev

/etc
inittab
rc.sysinit

/lib
libc.2.2.so (not sure if that's the exact filename)
ld-linux-2.0.so (ditto)

/proc

rc.sysinit contains only the following lines...

echo Testing
sleep 3
shutdown -h 0

 

You need to populate /proc (look into howto about bootdisks, it'll help you).

Re:
 

isn't /proc populated by the kernel?????????

I found the problem....forgot to create a dev node for /dev/console......