[uClibc] Kernel panic: No init found.

[Ted Schroeder]

I have just built a compiler and uclibc combination for a AMD Alchemy 
system that FreeHand Systems developed. It's mipsel architecture. The 
kernel is 2.4.20 with a few minor changes. This is a cross-compiler. 
When I compile and link everything together it all seems fine. The 
kernel boots, but when it gets ready to start busybox I get the above 
message.

I really don't have much more information than this, unfortunately. I've 
tried running code that was compiled statically and it runs fine on the 
system. If I try to run any executables that are linked with a shared 
library I get an error message saying "file not found." I even tried to 
run the ld-uClibc loader and this seg faults. I did a little debugging 
on this and found that it segfaults in _dl_boot2() after it can't find 
the elf header (this is supposed to follow the Auxiliary Vector Table, 
which looks ok to my uneducated eye. The segfault is actually in the 
call to SEND_STDERR().

I thought I might not have built the root file system correctly, so I 
took the pre-built root file system for mipsel, pruned out a bunch of 
stuff so things would fit and I get the same error. I'm sure I'm doing 
something wrong in configuration, but I can't figure it out to save my 
life.

I saw one other instance in the mailing list archives from back around 
2001 which said that the problem was related to not setting the 
SHARED_LIB_LOADER_PATH define, but I can't even find this anywhere in 
buildroot any more, so I think this might be a red herring.

At any rate, any hints that anybody might have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ted Schroeder
FreeHand Systems, Inc.