[ARMedslack] N00b alert: "Kernel image must be specified" (Qemu - Windows host)

[Ottavio]

Hello, first time here, please be patient.

I apologise asking this question here, but the Qemu user forum is
currently down and the qemu-devel list is aimed at developers only.

I have converted the -Current Miniroot fs to a proper image on a Linux
host, made some minor corrections to ftstab and inittab, transferred
it to a flash drive and tried to boot it on a Windows host with this
line:

qemu-system-arm.exe  -drive file=slackware-arm-root,index=0,media=disk
-M versatilepb -m 256  -usb -k en-gb

but I got the error: "Kernel image must be specified".

So I downloaded zImage-versatile and initrd-versatile.gz and added this :

-kernel zImage-versatile -initrd initrd-versatile.gz -append
"root=/dev/sda1 rootfs=ext2"

and It works fine.

Why does qemu-system-arm need a kernel and a initrd? Is it possible to
boot an ARM image directly? Is this a limitation of the ARM
Architecture or of the volatile board emulation or of qemu-system-arm
altogether?

Then I'd have some more n00b questions but I'll ask them later.

Thank you



-- 
Ottavio


A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?