Re: booting from a raid0 device.
On Fri, Apr 16, 1999 at 05:37:11PM +0200, Turbo Fredriksson wrote:
> Since our current policy dictates that we use the same kernel in the
> install process, as in the fully installed system, we must have both
> IDE and SCSI compiled in. Otherwise we must ALL boot with some form
> of initrd mechanism, and I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I
> like that...
Guess what? I've been proposing that our official kernel use "some form
of" initrd mechanism since months ago. I don't know about you, but I know
lots of our users don't like having 2 MBs of unused SCSI modules on RAM.
If you don't like using initrd (why not?), you can recompile your kernel.
With the initrd approach I'm proposing we may provide a kernel that will
fit the needs of more users without recompiling, and without wasting
their resources.
> > "floppy-booted" installations
> > one rescue disk with:
> > - "bare bones" kernel: no IDE, no SCSI, just floppy
> > - initrd with IDE
>
> Pardon? 'No IDE/SCSI, but initrd w/ IDE'? Or did you mean ether one of them?
no IDE/SCSI compiled in. IDE modules on the initial ramdisk.
> > I see a few cons (it's more complex than what we have now, user can't
> > replace kernel and modules without changing the inird image, ...) but it
> > looks like a good way to fix our space constraints, and IMO it scales better
> > and it's easier to use than the "boot & root floppies" approach.
> > Comments?
>
> I didn't like ether one of you ideas, because it will make things more
> difficult for people to change kernel... changing initrd image etc, etc...
More difficult? Why? Updating kernels may be as easy (automatic) as it
is right now. There's no need for manually rebuilding the initrd image if
that can be done by a script (find modules in current initrd, build
initrd with updated modules, that's all).
You may even build a standalone kernel and replace the default one with
it if you wish. It's just a matter of compiling in all the required
modules and modifying lilo.conf .
> But I agree, that it scales better than a lot of floppy images tough.
>
>
> As I said earlier, one HUGE kernel (not good, but it will surely support
> most hardware) on the first (and optionally only) floppy, the rest (root,
> modules etc) on 'fetch-able media' (CDROM, FTP, TFTP, NFS etc) would be
> better... Not good, but better than having to ALWAYS boot up via a initrd
> image...
one HUGE kernel on the first floppy, and suddenly it won't be the only
floppy. Size does matter. :-)
> One good thing about you way, though is that in theory, you can just remake
> your SCSI card's module, and copy that to the initrd image, and off you go...
>
>
> Hmmm... I think I'm going to at least try out this way, to see how much (memory/speed)
> I would gain from it... Unfortunately I don't have a monitor to my PC (going
> through a HP via ssh), so I can't see much of the booting... :)
--
Enrique Zanardi ezanardi@ull.es
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