Re: Sarge AMD64 installation won't boot
On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 03:49:54AM +0000, cmetzler@speakeasy.net wrote:
> OK, I have a dumbass question: why is yaird necessary at all? Or more
> accurately, why is an initrd necessary at all? Is it something about
> 2.6.x kernels? Back when I built 2.4.x kernels for my Athlon XP machine,
> I follwed the script of
>
> http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/system/kernel-pkg.html
>
> and I never messed with an initrd. My understanding is that the purpose
> of an initrd is to provide an image of a RAMdisk containing the modules
> the kernel needs to access the root file system; but if the hardware and
> filesystem support needed is compiled into the kernel, why even bother
> with an initrd?
For systems running root on raid or lvm or something, and initrd is
necesary to prepare the device for root before mounting it.
It is also helpful for making more general purpose kernels that will be
optimal on a wide range of hardware, hence the debian kernels use it. I
use it for any kernel I build myself too for the same reason. I like
being able to change my hardware without having to rebuild the kernel
because I left something out. Monolithic builds are just such a pain to
deal with. With modules I control the load order. With built in, I
have very little control over things. Certainly the kernel developers
seem to believe modular is the way to go. Some driver options don't
even appear to be possible to adjust if you build it in.
So yaird/initramfstools is needed to create the initrd image for setting
up the right drivers for the system the kernel is being installed on.
Len Sorensen
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