Re: from / to /usr/: a summary
On Thu, Dec 08, 2011 at 07:46:41PM +0000, Wookey wrote:
> +++ Marco d'Itri [2011-12-08 20:16 +0100]:
> > On Dec 07, Stephan Seitz <stse+debian@fsing.rootsland.net> wrote:
> >
> > - the platform does not support an initramfs
> > * I am still waiting for somebody to enumerate them, but I believe
> > that I can design a suitable workaround
>
> Anything that needs to boot fast (which is a lot of consumer-oriented
> equipment like TVs, phones, pdas, VOIP kit etc). One good way to do
> this is not waste time with an intramfs that will soon be superceded
> with a pivot-root.
>
> However in practice it is very hard to support this sort of thing in
> Debian anyway, because the way you get fast booting is by removing all
> the generality in scripts which check what sort of hardware and then
> load appropriate modules, drivers, programs and firmwares, and
> pre-configuring as much as possible. This approach directly
> contradicts the 'universal OS' approach of making things as generic as
> possible, and the requirments of a binary distro which has to build
> binaries to support 'everything'.
Indeed.
> So there probably aren't too many people who both _really really_
> don't want/can't have an initramfs and _also_ install Debian.
Currently the only Debian architectures which doesn't use
initramfs by default are the MIPS architectures. And I understand
that most of the boot loaders for MIPS can actually support an
initramfs.
> Most arm bootloaders _can_ load an initramfs, or at least can load a
> combined kernel+initramfs image (I'm not sure that debian tools can
> _make_ a combined kernel+initrd image - I've always used another tool
> like buildroot to do that?), so the number of platforms that can;t
> support this at all is very small.
We have a policy for kernel and initramfs hooks
<http://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-update-hooks.html>
that should allow that sort of thing to be done without the need
for specific support by the kernel or initramfs packags.
Ben.
> There are quite good reasons why you wouldn't want to do thing that
> way though. We should at least do our best not to make things
> unreasonably difficult for people in this situation, even if we chose
> not to really 'support' it.
--
Ben Hutchings
We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
- Albert Camus
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