Ah! It looks like this is not a constant, but a common failure mode
among android-based devices!
In dmesg:
```
Warning: unable to open an initial console.
```
Simply removing the `console=` fixes the console.
See f295dc1739 for a similar instance of
the issue.
... the real reason is that I need to figure out why the sd card isn't
detected. Figured that trying a less "random" tree could help figure
things out, though it doesn't help.
At least, the build seems consistent with either versions.
The config changes are also to try to "fix" things, while in reality
they don't seem to do anything useful.
