qemu emulated ARM machine fails to boot

Question

I compiled the Linux kernel (version 2.6.32) using the Emdebian ARM toolchain. Downloaded the initrd from Aurel's personal FTP server hosted on Debian here.

The ran qemu like so:

qemu-system-arm -M versatilepb -kernel zImage -hda hda.img -initrd initrd_versatile.gz -append "root=/dev/ram" -m 1024

Yet it fails with qemu reporting:

mount: mouting none of /run failed invalid argument.

Keen to hear if someone has something to say about this. As I search for it, could someone also let me know if it is possible to use an off the shelf initrd or is it related to the kernel version being run?

Answer 1

I was able to run the machine by cross compiling busybox, creating a cpio archive image and then using it like so:

qemu-system-arm -M versatilepb -m 128M -kernel zImage -initrd rootfs.img -append "root=/dev/ram rdinit=/bin/sh console=tty1"

Now that Ive got it working Ill investigate what those arguments actually mean.