Bug#499030: debian-installer: [s390] installer fails to boot 'attempt to kill init'

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

reassign 499030 rootskel 1.68
thanks

On Friday 19 September 2008, Frans Pop wrote:
> With the new rootskel I get an endless repetition of:
> steal-ctty: No such file or directory

Running with set-x gives a bit more info:
+   -f /var/run/console-device !
+ cat /var/run/console-device
+ exec /sbin/steal-ctty /dev/ttyS0 /sbin/debian-installer
steal-ctty: No such file or directory

This repeats endlessly. Note that the first line is mangled a bit because 
of the "!" in the if statement.

There seem to be various issues:
- trying /dev/ttyS0 is just plain wrong for s/390: /dev/ttyS0 does not
  exist, which explains the error from steal-ccty
- steal-ctty's error message should include the name of the file that does
  not exist
- the program should not end in a loop

If I remove the calls to reopen-console in the inittab the installer 
starts correctly. Note that the installer also worked correctly on s/390 
when cttyhack was being used.