Warning: unable to open an initial console.

[stappers@stappers.nl (Geert Stappers)]

Hello D.I.S.T.,
 
On an Intel computer that boot by pxelinux.0 from the syslinux package,
I get these last messages
 
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 1452k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 76k freed
Warning: unable to open an initial console.
 
 
So it dies before the first output...
 
The kernel is vmlinuz, the ramdisk is netboot-initrd.gz
both from  p.d.o/sjogren/d-i/images/daily ( 13 october )
 
path/to/linux/Documentation/initrd.txt says:
 
 3) mount the file system, e.g.
    # mount -t ext2 -o loop initrd /mnt
 4) create the console device (not necessary if using devfs, but it can't
    hurt to do it anyway):
    # mkdir /mnt/dev
    # mknod /mnt/dev/console c 5 1
 
 
Note that the console is created.
 
In the build tree, there are no device files:
 
$ cd build/tmp/netboot/tree/dev/
stappers@mir-CHROOT:/usr/src/debian-installer/build/tmp/netboot/tree/dev
$ ls
stappers@mir-CHROOT:/usr/src/debian-installer/build/tmp/netboot/tree/dev
$ cd ../../../floppy/tree/dev/
stappers@mir-CHROOT:/usr/src/debian-installer/build/tmp/floppy/tree/dev
$ ls
stappers@mir-CHROOT:/usr/src/debian-installer/build/tmp/floppy/tree/dev
$
 
 
 
I spend so time on this patch:
 
--- rootskel/src/linuxrc        27 Sep 2003 12:13:45 -0000      1.13
+++ rootskel/src/linuxrc        14 Oct 2003 22:04:25 -0000
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 # Set up filesystem as root and pivot into it.
-echo "Setting up filesystem, please wait ..."
+# not yet a console available, so we can't inform the user
 mount -t shm shm mnt
 cp -a `ls -1 | grep -v mnt | grep -v proc | grep -v dev | grep -v lost+found` mnt
 cd mnt
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@
 pivot_root . initrd
 mount -t proc proc proc
 mount -t devfs devfs dev
+mknod dev/console c 5 1
+echo Hello World!
 # Close all open files on the initrd, and run busybox init.
 rm -f linuxrc # this program
 ln -s /sbin/init linuxrc
 
 
But that dies also in
 
Warning: unable to open an initial console.
 
 
 
My question is:
 
What is the first file where output in userland (= none kernel land) happens?
 
 
Geert Stappers