Simon Hobson <linux@???> writes:
> I thought having a "big binary blob" wasn't supposed to be a problem ;-)
>
> http://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-users/2016-04/msg00031.html
>
>> [Xen-users] Debian 8.4, EFI, and systemd = Tricky
>> ...
>> My problem is that it hangs when trying so init systemd on dom0
>> ...
>> systemd is new to me. I would have expected that I could exec it from the shell and ideally it all should work, if everything was actually correctly working.
>>
>> At this point exec /bin/systemd hangs the machine, no output just a cursor(like every other hang)
>> I don't know how I can step through, or emulate systemd to see where the error occurs.
>
> Perhaps SysVinit would be similarly opaque in a failure,

At least not in this case: Considering that init is just a program,
it's perfectly possible to boot a system with something like

init=/bin/sh

on the kernel command line, say, in order to reset a root password
which got lost, and the boot into multi-user mode via

exec /sbin/init 3

after the problem has been solved.

NB: Just applying the init procedure to systemd based on the assumption
that it will work like a well-behaved UNIX(*) program should is - how
shall we say - a bit daring/ over-optimistic. There's presumably some
kind of systemd-procedure which should be applied instead.