Greetings,

First post on Linux questions so be gentle!

I've got a basic setup for booting from a USB stick working. I'm using kernel 2.6.31.3. I'm trying to use a FAT16 file system on the stick as the boot file system. Kernel boots and then dies with the message: "Warning: unable to open an initial console"

I suspected this was because there is no /dev/console entry on the root file system. When I try to execute the command:

mknod -m 600 $LFS/dev/console c 5 1

during the build of the USB file system, I get an error message: "mknod: '/mnt/dev/console': Operation not permitted".

My suspicion is that you can't make special files on the FAT16 file system. Is this what's causing the problem. If so or even if not, anyone have any ideas how to get around this problem?

Thanks,
FM

Well, Welcome to LQ fwmiller!

So, your just trying to boot a kernel?

Are you trying to run something really small or what?

Please also explain where the kernel came from
and your computer specs?

Kernel was compiled using FC8 on a Dell 4600. As mentioned, its 2.6.31.3 and I've skimmed it down to really bare bones, its about a 1.5M image size right now. I'm planning to do some custom stuff in userland so I'm not starting a standard /sbin/init. I'm just trying to get a busybox to come up first. I don't have anything in the file system right now except the kernel, a busybox binary, and some Grub boot scripts, i.e. no initab or fstab. There isn't even a /dev directory and so obviously no special files. That's what I'm trying to get working.

The computer I'm booting it on is a Dell Mini 9 with a first generation Atom processor and 1 Gb memory. The kernel boots, looks like its seeing the USB stick as it mounts it readonly. It then appears to be trying to start the console and fails at that point.

Does this help or are you interested in any more specific information?

Thanks,
FM

OK, after some more experimenting, it appears that it is the FAT file system that caused the problem. When I switched to the ext2 fs, this problem goes away.

FM