Re: initrd sizes mushroomed several months ago
David Wright composed on 2023-01-31 22:56 (UTC-0600):
> On Tue 31 Jan 2023 at 18:31:15 (-0500), Felix Miata wrote:
>> David Wright composed on 2023-01-28 09:10 (UTC-0600):
>>> On Sat 28 Jan 2023 at 03:15:11 (-0500), Felix Miata wrote:
>>>> I thought only Windows was like that, but apparently not always. I keep my
>>>> initramfs configuration set to =dep.
>>> And is that the reason behind, and cure for, your mushrooming initrd
>>> size complaint in https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2022/11/msg00331.html
>> More detail follows:
>> # inxi -S --vs
>> inxi 3.3.24-00 (2022-12-10)
>> System:
>> Host: big31 Kernel: 6.0.0-6-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Trinity
>> Distro: Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid
>> # ls -Gg /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 1582 Sep 12 04:21 /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf
>> # diff -u1 /etc/initramfs-tools/.initramfs.conf.07dpkg-dist /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf
>> --- /etc/initramfs-tools/.initramfs.conf.07dpkg-dist 2022-06-20 16:54:17.000000000 -0400
>> +++ /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf 2022-09-12 04:21:09.000000000 -0400
>> @@ -19,3 +19,3 @@
>> -MODULES=most
>> +MODULES=dep
>> # ls -Gg /boot/initrd.img-5.16.0-6* /boot/initrd.img-5.19* /boot/initrd.img-6*
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 7554203 Apr 22 2022 /boot/initrd.img-5.16.0-6-amd64
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 8324160 Sep 12 04:26 /boot/initrd.img-5.19.0-1-amd64
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 34597945 Nov 2 17:57 /boot/initrd.img-5.19.0-2-amd64
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 23955561 Jan 31 17:58 /boot/initrd.img-6.0.0-6-amd64
I think 6.0's is smaller because that upgrade cycle is when I installed zstd
before the newer kernel. It's specified by default in initramfs.conf, but the
upgrades from 11 to 12 here have only been including libzstd1, which apparently
is not used for initrd construction.
> I was under the impression that mushrooming occurred after 17, yet
> your 19…1 is small again.
> It's a simple matter to
> $ lsmkinitramfs -l /boot/initrd.img-5.19.0-2-amd64
> for 19…1 and 19…2, and compare their contents. Are there more modules
> included in the second one, or has each module expanded in size?
> Or is something included in the initrd that's unexpected? Has someone
> replaced busybox by ~250 different binaries? These are the obvious
> things to investigate.
Unexpected: giant firmware increase. :(
# lsinitramfs initrd.img-5.19.0-1-amd64 | grep mwar | wc -l
1
# lsinitramfs initrd.img-5.19.0-2-amd64 | grep mwar | wc -l
655
# lsinitramfs initrd.img-6.0.0-6-amd64 | grep mwar | wc -l
655
#
I'm not aware of whatever controls whether mountains of firmware
are stuffed into initrds or not. I can't make enough sense of what
/usr/share/initramfs-tools/ contains to know if there's something
in it that controls. Grepping busy in all three produces same result.
Installed sizes in /lib/modules vary nominally, 0.1MiB between the
two 5.19s, 468.9MiB & 468.8MiB, 452.4MiB for 6.0, 426.8 for 5.16, so it
doesn't look like installed firmware would have changed significantly.
--
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
based on faith, not based on science.
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
Felix Miata
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