Re: In preparation for 2.6.13 - initrd issues
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On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:23:25 -0700 (PDT)
Jurij Smakov <jurij@wooyd.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> As you probably know, the 2.6.13 kernel is out, and we are facing some
> problems with packaging it for Debian. A major change compared to 2.6.12
> is the discontinued support for devfs, which, I understand, renders
> current initrd-tools unusable. As I see it, there are two major problems
> which need to be taken care of:
>
> 1. Choice of the alternative tool for initrd generation and management.
> The alternatives I've heard about so far are yaird and initramfs (it
> appears that initramfs is not only the name of the new initrd filesystem
> but also the tool which is used to generate it). Yaird is heavily
> advocated by Sven Luther, but it would be nice to hear all pros and cons
> of both packages. It appears that both of them generate initrds in the new
> (initramfs) format which is essentially a cpio archive of all files. One
> difference mentioned is that yaird may be configured to do the
> install-time detection of required modules, and included only them into
> the initrd (similarly to initrd-tools). It is also claimed that the
> yaird code is easier to maintain. On the other hand, initramfs can only
> build an initrd using a fixed set of modules, so we'll need to include all
> the modules on initrd if we choose to go that way (is it actually true?).
> That clearly may have undesired consequences for low-memory installs.
A major drawback of yaird is lack of configuration. this has been added in latest release, and I have now spend all night packaging it, so should be available by tomorrow night in sid. Until then it can be grabbed at http://debian.jones.dk/auryn/pool/official/yaird/ (for powerpc, so recompile if using anything else).
> 2. What changes need to be done to integrate a new initrd-generating tool
> into the kernel packaging infrastracture. It might be as simple as
> switching the postinst of kernel packages from running mkinitrd to running
> yaird. I have no idea what issues may arise in d-i because of that.
yaird has a wrapper that simulates mkinitrd. Currently it is packaged as mkinitrd.yaird and must then manually be installed in /etc/kernel-img.conf as "ramdisk = /usr/sbin/mkinitrd.yaird", but if needed I can repackage with the wrapper as mkinitrd and the package conflicting mkinitrd.
- Jonas
- --
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/
- Enden er nær: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
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