just to bring this alive again 
ok, so i did a google search for:
“RAMDISK: Couldn’t find valid RAM disk image starting at 0”
and that comes up with some interesting links, I wonder this is the first problem to solve…
some interesting things on this thread - https://community.nxp.com/thread/456797
unfortunately like many imx6/nxp posts, there is no real answer, or suggestions in it.
hmm… so ive got to decide, if im going to give this another shot… where to start?
my ultimate goal now, would be to get the latest arch linux working… which involves the kernel upgrade, but possibly more.
I knowing doing the upgrade, ultimately gives a slightly different (but possibly related error)
about MMC0 - 11 failed to init (as detailed above)
hmm, i also need to decide if the best process is to do cross compilation…
where to start 
(again!)