Hi Anto,

[snip]


> 1. compile and install vdev
> 2. copy vdev's initrd into /boot
> 3. rename /sbin/init to /sbin/init.novdev

4. copy vdev's init file into /sbin
>

The init program in example/initramfs/init goes into
/usr/share/initramfs-tools/init, not /sbin/init :) The initramfs's init
script is fundamentally different from the init program in /sbin. That
also explains your inability to reboot.

Basically, when the bootloader loads the initramfs, the kernel mounts it as
the root device and starts /sbin/init. /sbin/init, in turn, runs the
script at /init (which you can see from the initramfs shell with "ls /"),
which is copied into the initramfs image by the update-initramfs and
mkinitramfs tools from the file /usr/share/initramfs-tools/init.

> 5. manually set the vdev's initrd and init.vdev in grub.cfg
> 6. manually add /etc/init.d/vdev into runlevel.conf (and keep
> /etc/init.d/udev)
>     first, I tried to put vdev before udev, then the other way around
> 7. reboot my PC using vdev's initrd and init

>
> There are some progress on the boot messages, but I still ended up on
> (initramfs) prompt. As before, I can only use my keyboard using kernel
> 3.2.0, so I could capture the vdev_debugging that you asked before. Please
> download that from
> https://minifora.eu/public/devuan/vdev/vdev_debug_logs.tar.gz. That file
> also contain the copy of /var/log/messages, but I just took the messages
> since I started to keep rebooting my PC.
>
> I think something still do not work properly on the vdev's init as I got
> message saying "/sbin/init: 30: .: Can't open /conf/arch.conf" at boot and
> when I did reboot as below.
>
> root@hp8530w:~# reboot
>
> Broadcast message from root@hp8530w (pts/1) (Fri Apr 17 18:28:56 2015):
>
> The system is going down for reboot NOW!
> Loading, please wait...
> mount: sysfs already mounted or /sys busy
> mount: according to mtab, sysfs is already mounted on /sys
> mount: proc already mounted
> /sbin/init: 30: .: Can't open /conf/arch.conf
> root@hp8530w:~#
> root@hp8530w:~# reboot
> WARNING: could not determine runlevel - doing soft reboot
> (it's better to use shutdown instead of reboot from the command line)
> Loading, please wait...
> mkdir: cannot create directory `/var/lock': File exists
> mount: sysfs already mounted or /sys busy
> mount: according to mtab, sysfs is already mounted on /sys
> mount: proc already mounted
> /sbin/init: 30: .: Can't open /conf/arch.conf
> root@hp8530w:~#
>
> I am still using file-rc instead of sysv-rc, but I didn't clean up
> /etc/rc?.d directories. I tried to use sysv-rc, but my mouse and keyboard
> are not being detected when using kernel 3.18.11. They are only being
> detected on kernel 3.2.0 from wheezy repository. I think there is something
> wrong with my kernel config but I will investigate that later.
>

Not sure yet what could be the cause of your keyboard and mouse not
working. Let's see what happens after you fix steps 3 and 4--it could be a
side-effect of the init program being broken, since the init program should
also run the console setup scripts.

Thanks,
Jude