Re: initrd sizes mushroomed several months ago

[David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>]

On Sat 12 Nov 2022 at 01:57:51 (-0500), Felix Miata wrote:
> # grep MODULES= /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf
> MODULES=dep
> # ls -Ggh /boot/initrd.img-[5,6]*
> -rw-r--r-- 1 6.8M May  8  2022 /boot/initrd.img-5.17.0-1-686
> -rw-r--r-- 1  31M Aug  2 03:06 /boot/initrd.img-5.18.0-3-686
> -rw-r--r-- 1  31M Sep 30 15:43 /boot/initrd.img-5.19.0-2-686
> -rw-r--r-- 1  36M Nov 12 01:36 /boot/initrd.img-6.0.0-3-686
> 
> Does anyone here have an explanation for the mega-change in size of initrds after
> kernel 5.17? My initramfs.conf has had MODULES=dep since before testing/bullseye
> became testing/bookworm.

Another line of attack:

  $ grep MODULES= /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/*

Failing any matches with that, I'd like to see whatever is in
those initrds with lsinitramfs. After all, I just ran:

  # mkinitramfs -v -k -o ./initrd-5-10-0-19-amd64-dep-only
  # nano /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf
  # mkinitramfs -v -k -o ./initrd-5-10-0-19-amd64-most

and got:

  # ls -Glg ./initrd-5-10-0-19-amd64-*
  -rw-r--r-- 1  8252655 Nov 14 11:49 ./initrd-5-10-0-19-amd64-dep-only
  -rw-r--r-- 1 36952534 Nov 14 11:53 ./initrd-5-10-0-19-amd64-most
  # ls -Glg /boot/initrd.img-5.10.0-19-amd64
  -rw-r--r-- 1 36951179 Nov  4 13:16 /boot/initrd.img-5.10.0-19-amd64
  # 

Cheers,
David.