Elinos Kernel Panic "Init not found try init="

It seems that the kernel does not find the first user program to run. It is usually called 'init', as the standard startup program is /sbin/init which then starts the rest by interpreting the contents of /etc/inittab.

I checked my copy of kernel sources (2.4.27). The kernel first attempts to run the file given in the kernel parameter 'init=', then in succession the files /sbin/init, /etc/init, /bin/init and /bin/sh. If none is found, the kernel gives the panic message you've seen. The source is in the file /usr/src/linux/ init/main.c, function init().

There is the document BootPrompt-HOWTO in the Linux Documentation Project. Another maybe useful HOWTO is From-PowerUp-To-Bash-Prompt-HOWTO, although it is somewhat dated.

The GRUB manual gives details how to give the kernel parameters via GRUB.

HTH (Tschuess)

Last time I looked (which is admittedly a while ago), the actual problem behind this could also be the kernel failing to mount the root filesystem: The init program has to reside somewhere within the root FS, so, if the mount fails, it cannot execute init, which causes this somewhat misleading error message.

Check if the preceeding messages contain something along the lines of "failed to mount root".

Rob

Hello,

Thank you very much for your kind support.

Monica