On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:35 PM, Neil Bothwick <neil@...> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:56:28 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>
>> > Well, for one, the initramfs solution is not generally considered
>> > "ugly" except by a select vocal few who object to it on vague,
>> > unarticulated grounds.
>>
>> I'll articulate a few.  (i) The initramfs involves having two copies of
>> lots of software around.
>
> Lots? For most people busybox is enough! If you want encrypted
> filesystems on LVM over RAID that rises to a total of four executables.

And anything they might conceivably link to. Not everything supports
static linking.

Don't forget boot-time X-based animation, too. That's an
extraordinarily common feature of mainstream desktop distributions.
And there will be other things, I'm sure.

>> (ii) What's more, these two copies are often
>> different, one being built with static libraries, the other with dynamic
>> ones.  (iii) This situation is not (as far as I know) yet handled by
>> Portage, which means in building such software statically, you've got to
>> save the dynamic version somewhere else whilst you're doing it.
>
> That's wrong. For example, LVM builds dynamic executable plus the
> lvm.static file for use in the initramfs.

That's exactly what Alan just noted in (ii), but perhaps portage
handles (iii) in the case of LVM.

>> (iv)
>> The initramfs requires a potentially long script to make it work.
>
> Mount /proc, /sys and /dev.
> Mount root
> Unmount /proc, /sys and /dev.
> switch_root

Things look much simpler when you abstract away the details. You still
have to manage lvm, mdraid and whatever else is necessary for mounting
things. That's where 'potentially long' came from, I expect.

>> I think that qualifies the initramfs solution as ugly.
>
> Only if you build the initramfs with USE="fud".

FUD: "Fear, uncertainty and doubt"

In short, three things which are important to rationally examine and
deal with on a case-by-case basis.

Fear of risk is healthy when trying to maintain something.

Uncertainty is expected when you first launch into some brave, new
world, and it's necessary to to learn things well enough to be able to
rule out uncertain conditions. That's an intrinsic part of systemic
stability.

Doubt is another word for risk analysis. What are the chances this
will fail, versus the chance that that will fail? What's the cost of
each of these failures.

-- 
:wq