Re: Experimental 2.6.13 packages are available for testing

[Sébastien Bernard <seb@frankengul.org>]

Jurij Smakov a écrit :

> Hi,
>
> I have built *experimental* 2.6.13 kernel packages for sparc based on 
> the debian-kernel svn revision 4366. They are available at
>
> http://www.wooyd.org/debian/kernels/2.6/
>
> The important change which kernel team is planning to implement in 
> this release is to switch from cramfs/ext2 based initial ramdisk 
> (initrd) to an initramfs-based one. There are currently two tools 
> which may be used to create such an initrd: initramfs-tools and yaird. 
> Currently we have no information on how either of them performs on 
> sparc, thus testing them out is of particular importance (especially 
> since I'm still in the process of getting my own sparc64 box for 
> testing). In order to switch the initrd creation to yaird or initramfs 
> tools, it is sufficient to add one of the following options to 
> /etc/kernel-img.conf:
>
> ramdisk = /usr/sbin/mkinitrd.yaird
>
> or
>
> ramdisk = /usr/sbin/mkinitramfs
I learned in the hard way that vmlinuz kernel has a size limitation. If 
the kernel grow too big, the silo isn't able to boot it anymore.
Is this limitation applicable to the initrd.img and/or initramfs ?

To my understanding, the initramfs is linked to the kernel increasing it 
by the size of the initramfs (several megabytes).
Won't the kernel be oversized with the initramfs making its usage 
irrelevant with the sparc64 architecture ?

By the way, if you want to use yaird, don't forget to copy 
/usr/lib/yaird/conf/Debian-initrd.conf to the 
/usr/lib/yaird/conf/Templates.cfg.

The default file will generate unbootable initrd.

   Seb