I'm attempting to build a linux appliance. The main root file system will be the initramfs image.

I've got everything else working except for this problem. It seems as soon as I install the glibc 32-bit libraries in the initramfs image, during boot it will automatically reboot on me.

System software using:

binutils: 2.18
gcc: 4.2.4
glibc: 2.7
kernel: 2.6.24

Here is what happens when it boots:

1. Successful decompression of linux kernel
2. Now says "booting the kernel"
3. And then it reboots a few seconds later

If I remove the glibc libraries, the .so files, it will boot normally. For those wondering, no it doesn't even get to the point where I see [0.00000] on the side. It just reboots as if it has crashed. But why would including glibc cause that?

This is also a multilib system, so I need the 32-bit and 64-bit c libraries of glibc included.

Which HOWTO or what steps do you use to build yourself the initramfs image? And do you use any particular boot args? And does this happen with all Glibc versions? And how did you prep Glibc for living in the initramfs? And would you need Glibc at all or could using say Diet libc plus Busybox work for you? If none of this provides any clues then there may be two completely different approaches: either take a "known good" configuration from a Live CD of a distribution release that matches your requirements as closely as possible or use a remote kernel debugger in search for clues. The first may or may not provide you with a base image to work with, the second may take up more of your time than you would be willing to invest. If you go the debugger way and only have one machine at your disposal then it would be good to know that from Workstation 6.0 on VMWare supports debugging by adding a "debugStub.listen.guest64=1" to the guests configuration file (*.vmx) and attaching gdb to the port mentioned in boot up messages. You do need to rebuild the kernel to include symbols to aid debugging and you should read the GDB documentation http://sourceware.org/gdb/documentation/.

//NTLB

Found the problem. Glibc has international language support but the kernel 2.6.24 does not have it integrated yet. The moment I moved to kernel 2.6.33.6 it boots fine.

I did get it all working in using buildroot with an external toolchain Crosstool-NG that allowed me to select glibc.