Hi,

I'm not looking for an exact answer here, because I'm doing a messy job of compiling some kernel sources for a certain live cd distro.

After two different compiles, the booting process gets quite far (surprisingly!) and fails just when INIT starts (or should start) to kick in.

i.e. goes to VFS: mounted root, frees kernel memory, and then fails. It fails by re-booting the computer.

All I want to ask is, what typically causes this behaviour? Top-of-the-head answers is all I'm looking for.

The truth is I don't understanding the kernel booting process much, and no doubt I should read the relevant HOWTOs, and believe me, I will, I thought I'd picth for a quickie answer or two here.

Well, thanks for the link, and the effort in replying.

However, I mentioned those HOWTOs already, so it's clear I know them.

This one in particular I have actually read over but not understood.

I guess, this kernel boot fail could be anything, although it's happened with two different kernel sources.

I have a suspicion that it is behaviour characteristic of something obvious, but if nobody here is telling me, well maybe it's not as obvious as I suspect.