Comment 21 for bug 659422

Failed to start up immediately after a virgin install of 32-bit Server (Minimal Virtual Install option) 10.04 LTS on VMWare ESXi 4.1. Get the segfault after the udevd failure line, then a revert to busybox.

Changing VMWare's identified OS from Ubuntu 32-bit to any other value does not resolve issue.
Changing VMWare's CPU/MMU Virtualization value from Automatic to "Use Intel VT-x/AMD-V" does not resolve issue.
The only way to boot the VM is to turn Acceleration off.

Once booted, I reverted back to the earlier known good kernel, 2.6.34.24:
$ apt-get install linux-image-2.6.32-24-virtual
$ echo "linux-image-2.6.32-33-virtual hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections # stock kernel on distro
$ echo "linux-image-2.6.32-41-virtual hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections # current dist-upgrade target for this distro

Then I turned Acceleration back on and rebooted. Works. W00t!

$ uname
Linux myboxname 2.6.32-24-generic-pae #43-Ubuntu SMP Thu Sep 16 15:30:27 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux