Check your initramfs if it's missing /dev/null or /dev/console, this is likely the reason. If you want all actual devices to be created you could also enable devtmpfs in your kernel (.config) and mount like this during init: CONFIG_DEVTMPFS=y CONFIG_DEVTMPFS_MOUNT=y mount -t devtmpfs none /dev But note devtmpfs will not create /dev/null or /dev/console for........