[Nix-dev] trying NixOS, boot error

[Isaac Dupree]

I installed nixos-0.1pre12198-i686-linux using qemu with -hda /dev/sda5 
to make sure it wouldn't try overwriting my MBR, because installers have 
a habit of doing that if one doesn't know the incantation necessary to 
stop them for certain.  As far as I could tell, the only effect that had 
was preventing the installation of GRUB; my "/" filesystem is label = 
"nixos1".  Anyway, the error I get when booting (I extracted linux, 
arguments, initrd info from /nix/store/*-system/) is, soon after <<NixOS 
Stage 2>> or something like that,

...
creating user nixbld10...
/nix/store/691zbxamfi710b84wzp8c1q8ji3iw3a-boot-stage-2-init.sh: line 
127: /var/run/current-system/upstart/sbin/init: No such file or directory
/nix/store/691zbxamfi710b84wzp8c1q8ji3iw3a-boot-stage-2-init.sh: line 
127: execute: /var/run/current-system/upstart/sbin/init: No such file or 
directory
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

It wouldn't be quite so bad if I got a rescue shell, but I don't even 
get that! :-)  Any advice on helping this to work?

P.S. to be precise (although it hardly matters -- especially since I got 
the same error from a straight boot from my own GRUB2), to boot the 
installed partition from QEMU, I copied the kernel and initrd to 
/media/GRUB2/ and ran it with (from Ubuntu Hardy x86 edition)
sudo kvm -smp 2 -m 1000 -hda /dev/sda -kernel /media/GRUB2/linuznix1 
-append 
'init=/nix/store/691zbxamfi710b84wzp8c1q8ji3i3w3a-boot-stage-2-init.sh 
selinux=0 apm=on acpi=on vga=0x317 console=tty1 splash=verbose gpt' 
-initrd /media/GRUB2/initrnix1

-Isaac