On 2016-03-04 11:38:33 (-0700), Patrick [off-list ref] wrote:

I was able to install SYSLINUX on a disk image and get the kernel I built
to start booting Linux with QEMU pointing to a loopback device associated
with the disk image. However, at some point far into the boot process, I
get a kernel panic. I can't read the beginning of the error messages that
the kernel prints, because the errors run off the screen.

You should be able to persuade qemu to be a bit more helpful.
'-nographic' turns off graphical output and redirects the serial port to
the console (or just use '-serial'). You can then configure your kernel
to log to the serial port.

This should get you started:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19565116/redirect-qemu-window-output-to-terminal-running-qemu

Regards,
Kristof