Bug#341152: initrd-tools: unable to boot after replacing devfs with udev: kernel panic, unable to create null, no console

[Moshe Yudkowsky <speech@pobox.com>]

Package: initrd-tools
Version: 0.1.84
Severity: important

I cannot get 2.6.12 or 2.6.12 to boot because of the transition from devfs to udev, and the problem seems to lie with initrd.

The symptom: 

* when I boot using devfs=mount, the boot succeeds. I get a "cannot umount /proc/mount" message but the boot continues.

* when devfs is not running, at about the same point I get a "cannot create null," followed by a "cannot open dev/console," followed by a "Kernel panic" and "Attempting to kill init" message.

Notes: 

When I look at the initrd-img, I notice that there's a "devfs" directory as well as a dev directory. The contents pf the /dev directory are:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   14 Dec 31  1969 cciss -> ../devfs/cciss
crw------- 1 root root 5, 1 Dec 31  1969 console
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   12 Dec 31  1969 ida -> ../devfs/ida
drwx------ 1 root root   20 Dec 31  1969 ide
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   15 Dec 31  1969 mapper -> ../devfs/mapper
drwx------ 1 root root   32 Dec 31  1969 md
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 Dec 31  1969 null
drwx------ 1 root root   20 Dec 31  1969 scsi

so the console should be available on init, if I understand what's going on (and perhaps I do not).

There's nothing in the /devfs directory in the initrd-img.

Now, it's entirely possible that this is all a stupid user trick: I got udev running by adding it into my system, but I didn't do anything else, such as a "rm -r" on my /dev directory. I have the compatibility rules package for udev running, so I see "vc/*" and the tty packages when I boot using devfs=mount.

If anyone has any hints or tricks that might fix this problem, or needs further data, please let me know.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.12-1-k7
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages initrd-tools depends on:
ii  coreutils [fileutils]         5.93-5     The GNU core utilities
ii  cpio                          2.6-9      GNU cpio -- a program to manage ar
ii  cramfsprogs                   1.1-6      Tools for CramFs (Compressed ROM F
ii  dash                          0.5.2-8    The Debian Almquist Shell
ii  fileutils                     5.93-5     The GNU file management utilities 
ii  util-linux                    2.12p-8    Miscellaneous system utilities

initrd-tools recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information