On Thursday, September 15, 2011 09:27:06 AM Zac Medico wrote: > On 09/15/2011 09:04 AM, Joost Roeleveld wrote: > > Thank you for your response, however, I do have a few questions about > > this. Where will this default initramfs actually need to be placed? > > It should be similar to how sys-apps/v86d is used for uvesafb support. > It installs /usr/share/v86d/initramfs and when you configure your > kernel, you set CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE="/usr/share/v86d/initramfs" in > order to have in included in your kernel image.
Will this be set somewhere globally to the initramfs automatically? And doesn't this mean that a new kernel will need to be build just to satisfy this? I'm trying to think of how best to avoid users who are not aware to get caught with non-booting systems. Wouldn't automatic inclusion into grub.conf be a better approach? Not sure if grub.conf can handle a "global" setting for initramfs. > > Also, how will > > we be able to deal with situations where this script fails? > > It should drop you to a minimal shell. But, with udev then failing, will there be the /dev-entries to mount the different partitions to fix the environment? > > If Gentoo does decide to follow the initramfs-route, why not simply > > implement /etc/init.d/localmount in the initramfs? > > I think that's pretty close to what we have planned, since the plan is > to have the initramfs mount configuration stored on the root filesystem. But still require a seperate configuration file for this? > > Why require users to figure out which > > filesystems are needed for udev? > > Simply mount all filesystems containing files managed by the package > manager with the initramfs. Anything else would expose you to the > possibility of unsatisfied dependencies. On my desktop, that would mean the following list: /usr/ /var/ /opt/ /tmp/ /opt/tmp/ > > Also, I was actually hoping for a reply to the rest of my email as well, > > especially the idea for splitting udev into 2 seperate processes. > > In essence, what your doing here is playing a game of "let's see how > long we can delay the mounting of essential filesystems". If you play > this game, then again, you expose yourself to the possibility of > unsatisfied dependencies. Therefore, the only foolproof approach is to > mount all essential filesystems as soon as possible (via initramfs). True, but I don't have any scripts configured for udev on my desktop. My server has some scripts related to Xen, and those are all under /etc/xen/... In this case, would it still be necessary to use an initramfs? > > If someone can explain to me why my idea won't work, please let me know. > > If your goal is to expose yourself to the possibility of unsatisfied > dependencies, they your idea will achieve it. No, my goal is to come up with a different solution to this problem which, on my system and possibly also on a lot of other systems, doesn't actually exist. -- Joost
