Kubuntu installs & reboots, but after system upgrade, boot fails.

[Aere Greenway]

On a slow (800 mhz) low-memory (384 meg) machine with a slow hard drive, the
Kubuntu 10.04 installation goes okay, but after installing system bug-fixes and security
upgrades, it fails to reboot, stopping, displaying:

No init found. Try passing init= bootarg.

It's looking at the initramfs file system when this occurs.

I tried installing Kubuntu 9.10 on the same machine, and got the same problem! I installed
Kubuntu 8.04 with no problem.

[Aere Greenway (aere)]

This means that on such machines, I cannot install anything newer than 8.04, and cannot ever upgrade to a more modern level.

I suspect it has something to do with the new GRUB boot-loader.

[kurt belgrave (trinikrono)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage . I have classified this bug as a bug in the Ubuntu Linux kernel (linux)
Also please look at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingKernelBoot

[Alexey (pointer82)]

Same problem i found with Ubuntu 10.10 after installing updates and reboot.
mount: mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: no such file or directory
mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: no such file or directory
mount: mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: no such file or directory
Target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/init.
No init found. Try passing init=bootarg.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi Aere,

Please be sure to confirm this issue exists with the latest development release of Ubuntu. ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily/current/ . If the issue remains, please run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 601661

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

    [This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Aere Greenway (aere)]

I spent a lot of time on this (trying to upgrade my daughter's machine to a newer level of Kubuntu Linux).

I had the same problem on 9.10. When I tried 9.04, I encountered other problems. But 8.04 would install and run without any problems.

I have come to the conclusion that although Kubuntu Linux 9.x or 10.x will install and appear to run on a machine with 384 meg of memory, it will not run reliably. The problems can be catastrophic (like the one reported), or less disastrous like the case of 9.04 not being able to configure the wireless.

I have years of experience using Kubuntu Linux 8.04 successfully on 384 meg of memory, and that is probably the last level of Kubuntu Linux that will run reliably on that amount of memory.

I gave my daughter back her machine with two redundant Kubuntu Linux 8.04 partitions on it, and no longer have the machine to try something further.

[kurt belgrave (trinikrono)]

Aere
I believe that this bug can be closed then for now then .
You can feel free to test maverick on the kubuntu pc and see if it is better supported.
Cheers

[kurt belgrave (trinikrono)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!