How to enable early printk Early printk can only be enabled if debug=y. You may want to enable it if you are debbuging code that executes before the console is initialized. Note that selecting this option will limit Xen to a single UART definition. Attempting to boot Xen image on a different platform *will not work*, so this option should not be enable for Xens that are intended to be portable. CONFIG_EARLY_PRINTK=mach where mach is the name of the machine: - vexpress: printk with pl011 for versatile express - exynos5250: printk with the second UART - midway: printk with the pl011 on Calxeda Midway processors - fastmodel: printk on ARM Fastmodel software emulators The base address and baud rate is hardcoded in xen/arch/arm/Rules.mk, see there when adding support for new machines. If not explicitly requested with "EARLY_PRINTK_INIT_UART := y" in Rules.mk, the code will not try to initialize the UART, so that bootloader or firmware settings can be used for maximum compatibility. The baud rate parameter is ignored in this case. By default early printk is disabled.