On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 9:03 AM, Bruce Hill <da...@happypenguincomputers.com> wrote: > On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 09:24:20AM -0500, Todd Goodman wrote: >> * Bruce Hill <da...@happypenguincomputers.com> [121225 18:30]: >> > > >> > > Try reading the kernel Documentation. (e.g., >> > > /usr/src/linux/Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt.) >> > > >> > > initramfs is an improvement over initrd. >> > > >> > > Todd >> > >> > Having read it years ago it still fails to give me a good reason for using >> > it. >> >> It gives plenty of good reasons. >> >> If they aren't good for you then fine. >> >> But if you read it you wouldn't be asking why initrd went away and was >> replaced by initramfs. >> >> Todd > > Actually I had not read it in quite a number of years, did this morning, and > you are entirely correct. Perhaps all those years ago when an initrd was > required at times, I'd just held onto my mkinitrd script and didn't want to > change; and since there's no need for an initrd now, I didn't actually read > it, but clung to incorrect memories.
One interesting small point I got out of the docs that Neil pointed me toward: That since linux-2.6 we're all using an initramfs "The 2.6 kernel build process always creates a gzipped cpio format initramfs archive and links it into the resulting kernel binary. By default, this archive is empty (consuming 134 bytes on x86)." So it's a nit but no one should be saying "I don't use an init thingy" but rather "My init thingy is empty and has no jobs to do on my system". (Or at least that's my understanding...) - Mark
