Bug#402499: initramfs-tools: depmod wastes space and time, please replace it with a modules.dep file

[maximilian attems <maks@sternwelten.at>]

On Mon, Dec 11, 2006 at 07:51:24AM +1100, Russell Coker wrote:
> 
> When compressed a full modules.dep file is larger than a compressed
> depmod binary:
> # gzip -9 < /lib/modules/2.6.17-2-686/modules.dep |wc -c
> 15962
> # ls -l sbin/depmod
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 37736 2006-12-11 07:38 sbin/depmod
> # gzip -9 < sbin/depmod | wc -c
> 16936
> 
> When using a modules.dep file with the modules=list option the
> uncompressed file is 2601 bytes.
> 
> It seems that using depmod instead of a modules.dep file is not going to
> save initramfs size for anyone, it just adds another program to be run
> (more compute time and another thing which can potentially break) and
> does no good.

nice idea, but in initramfs the depmod call is blazingly fast!
this can be easily timed in a qemu image.
so nacked.

i really don't see your antipathy on BUSYBOX=n
there you can get rid of glibc which is taking a _huge_
place on initramfs.
klibc-utils already ships dash as rescue shell.

best regards

-- 
maks