[Cbe-oss-dev] Can't boot PS3 without using initrd

[Geoff Levand]

On 06/01/2009 07:22 PM, Jonathan Adamczewski wrote:
> I've been trying to set up an initrd-free boot for my PS3 without
> success.  I've built everything I can identify as being necessary
> into the kernel, turned off initrd support, and get a kernel that
> loads, flashes some penguins and text to the screen for the briefest
> of moments and then the screen goes black and the system freezes -
> no lights indicating activity, press the power button until the
> second beep to shutdown.
> 
> Any ideas?

ps3_defconfig does not use an initrd. I recommend you start with that,
then after your system will boot, try tuning your own config.

As others mentioned, you need at lease a console node in /dev of the
root FS, otherwise you will not see anything on the console, and the
system will halt at bootup with a 'cannot open console' panic (which
you can't see).

crw------- 1 root root 5, 1 /dev/console

BTW, to test you can setup your bootloader to load the kernel over
the network using tftp or http.  That way you don't need to get the
ps3 bootable just to copy a kernel to the ps3 HD.  The modules won't
be on the ps3 HD, but it you can debug this problem without them.

-Geoff