With latest rawhide qemu (qemu-0.8.0-6.fc6) and kernel (2.6.16-1.2200_FC6) if you try to run qemu with -kernel and -initrd, you get an error like: checking if image is initramfs...it isn't(bad gzip magic numbers); looks like an initrd Sticking in some debugging printks it seems that the contents of the initramfs are being overwritten at some point with a load address of 0x400000. I tried increasing the load address and it eventually worked at 0x800000. This post to qemu-devel confirms the issue: http://www.mail-archive.com/qemu-devel@nongnu.org/msg04606.html However, that reporter indicated that it was the kernel size that was the issue for him whereas in our case the kernel fits happily between 0x100000 and 0x400000, so I'm not sure what's actually causing the overrun here.
All supported releases (FC-5, FC-6 and devel) currently have qemu-0.8.2, can you retest with this version and report back here? Thanks!
Repeating myself (PING): All supported releases (FC-5, FC-6 and devel) currently have qemu-0.8.2, can you retest with this version and report back here? Thanks!
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 234681 ***