/sbin/init not found after general tomfoolery

26 October 2022, 16:48:42

quick run down:
I don't update my system for long periods of time (data comes at a premium where I live)
I needed a pdf editor (scribus, it's allright)
that needed icu v72 (available; v71)
updating it would break dependancies, so I update the dependancies too
no dice though, as something still needs icu v71 when loading scribus
I put scribus on ice, I have an alpine laptop, decide to upgrade system to latest
data comes at a premium, spring cleaning time it is and I remove all packages I believe I don't need and arent needed by something else
turns out, unused packages aren't unneeded ones and so here's what hapens paraphrased:

running hook [udev]
triggering uevents
fsck on /dev/sda3
mounting /dev/sda3 on real root
running cleanup hoock [udev]
ERROR: root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist
bailing out, you are on your own
[rootfs ]#

/sbin/init is a symlink to 'busybox'
/usr/bin/openrc - no such file

appending init=/usr/bin/openrc to cmdline
works, but kernel panics because openrc wasn't used to init this system and PID 1 exits

appending init=/bin/bash to cmdline
works as it should and file /sbin/init is a symlink to /usr/bin/openrc
touching /run/openrc/softlevel and exec /usr/bin/openrc nets me an unresponsive system, though some services are loaded until openrc hangs

I'd also had a Xubuntu 16.?? install in a spare partition for cases where my main system wouldn't boot from wich I did a chroot did a pacman -Syu and rebuilt my initrd still with as few dice as I had before

except for the uninstalled packages, what am I missing, what does busybox init need to find /sbin/init on real root, why is busybox init in my initramfs?

Re: /sbin/init not found after general tomfoolery

Reply #1 – 26 October 2022, 18:12:20

AdEndum 1: while /sbin/init does not contain a symlink to /usr/bin/openrc, /new_root/sbin/init does, and I believe that to be the problem as it is a symlink to /bin/openrc not (I suppose) /new_root/bin/openrc