Curiosity

I realize this thought probably isn't specific to this list
but one
thing I find curious with the LFS book and the section on
building
the kernel, there is no mention of "initrd". 
Actually, what I find
even more curious is that the "make" process for
kernels doesn't
make the initrd image.  I've always found that to be weird
omission.
Does anyone have any idea why that is?


Mike

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On 8/3/07, Michael J. Lynch <mlynchgcom.com> wrote:
> I realize this thought probably isn't specific to this
list but one
> thing I find curious with the LFS book and the section
on building
> the kernel, there is no mention of "initrd". 
Actually, what I find
> even more curious is that the "make" process
for kernels doesn't
> make the initrd image.  I've always found that to be
weird omission.
> Does anyone have any idea why that is?

initrd is not needed for LFS.  The reason for initrd is to
basically
mount the root partition when the appropriate driver is not
compiled
into the kernel.  This is useful for commercial distros
where the
partition formats are not known in advance.  For LFS, we
know the
partition type in advance and compile it into the kernel
which makes
initrd is unnecessary.
  -- Bruce
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On 8/3/07, Michael J. Lynch <mlynchgcom.com> wrote:
> Actually, what I find
> even more curious is that the "make" process
for kernels doesn't
> make the initrd image.  I've always found that to be
weird omission.
> Does anyone have any idea why that is?

I think there are a couple utilities shipped in the kernel
that deal
with init{rd,ramfs}. However, in practice each distro
provides they're
own init tools. This is because the initramfs, just like
the
initscripts, are extremely distro specific. It's pretty
much
impossible to make a generic initramfs without some
knowledge of what
userspace components will be involved after init is done.

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Dan
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