Replying to myself. Same patch with a local variable for argv_sh. It should 
apply to both 2.4 and 2.5.

> If init cannot be executed, the init(.) function in init/main.c falls back
> to sh and calls execve("/bin/sh", argv_init, envp_init).
>
> But if there is no "init=" in the command line, argv_init can contain
> something (most likely the "auto" preprended by lilo) and the shell will
> terminate immediately. (parse_options(.) does not handle this case since it
> does not find "init=").

--- linux-2.4.18/init/main.c    Mon Feb 25 20:38:13 2002
+++ linux/init/main.c   Wed Feb 27 23:12:40 2002
@@ -544,6 +544,8 @@

 static int init(void * unused)
 {
+	static char * argv_sh[] = { "sh", NULL, };
+
 	lock_kernel();
 	do_basic_setup();

@@ -575,6 +577,6 @@
 	execve("/sbin/init",argv_init,envp_init);
 	execve("/etc/init",argv_init,envp_init);
 	execve("/bin/init",argv_init,envp_init);
-	execve("/bin/sh",argv_init,envp_init);
+	execve("/bin/sh",argv_sh,envp_init);
 	panic("No init found.  Try passing init= option to kernel.");
 }

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