My linode won't boot and gets dumped to an initramfs prompt.

I use debian buster, SELinux, and grub 2 on my linode hosts. Some combination of my set up led to my linode being unable to boot recently. (This happened to one, and then another of my linodes). It was related to a dist-upgrade.

The most expedient method of fixing the problem was to switch to the "dracut" package for building my initramfs rather than whatever the debian default is.

Step 1) Edit linode profile (or create new profile) to boot Latest 64 bit kernel instead of GRUB 2.
Step 2) Boot linode.
Step 3) install dracut (apt-get install dracut)
Step 4) Update grub (run update-grub)
Step 5) Shutdown linode
step 6) Re-edit profile to select GRUB 2 kernel, or boot old profile [this depends on if you edited your existing profile or created a new profile]
Step 7) Boot linode

I see this more as a work around, but trying to troubleshoot initramfs over a lish connection is not my idea of a good time.

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This doesn't really sound like a Linode problem since it's triggered by a dist-upgrade. If you haven't previously used it, Lish over SSH is generally a more enjoyable experience than the web console IMO.

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