Shyamal Prasad wrote:
Well, most people I've run into think that not having the initrd built by default is "sensible." There is (was? its been a while) a certain class of Linux users who immediately recompile the kernel so they build all that they need into the kernel and not have any modules. They say this is more "efficient". Whatever. It is hard tokeep everyone happy.
That's not quite what I meant: given that not building in initrd means that one *must* have the right filesystems compiled directly in, and what that filesystem is is going to depend on what one decided to format the boot partition with, *and* that not compiling in initrd is likely to give you an unbootable system, it seems "sensible" to me that initrd should be on by default, since this will always give you a bootable system.
Then again, I subscribe to the "first do no harm" philosophy of IT - it seems more useful to me for the defaults on these tools to give you a bootable system without necessarily optimizing very well; the optimization can come later (and of course should be supported by the same tools).
Chris --As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
~ M. Cartmill