Re: [gentoo-user] Optional /usr merge in Gentoo

[Alan McKinnon]

On 01/09/2013 16:30, Tanstaafl wrote:
> On 2013-09-01 12:31 AM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@×××××.com> wrote:
>> Of course, support for an initramfs is not actually a file system
>> (it's not even in the File systems section of the kernel
>> configuration, is in General setup); it's not possible to have
>> initramfs as a module (that would make no sense at all); and it's
>> code that is several orders of magnitude more simpler than the one
>> used by ext4 (or any other journal file system).
>
> Is there any reason that the creation, use and maintenance of the
> initramfs couldn't be as simple as a checkbox in the kernel config, so
> that running 'make' after the kernel was configured would automatically
> build it? Then, all I'd have to do is move it into /boot along with the
> new kernel (just like I do now), with *nothing* else required, and the
> kernel would call it, and things would just work (as long as it was
> there and I didn't forget to copy it to /boot).


That would require a config file of some sort to define what files you
want in the initramfs, and it must be available to the kernel build
process. It also has to read your self-defined arbitrary stuff from your
userland.

The kernel build machinery is a self-contained environment, the kernel
devs work very hard to keep userland out of it. So expect Linux to shoot
you down in flames for the very suggestion.

You keep asking for tools to automate the production of an initramfs;
you should realize that the thing has got absolutely nothing to do with
building and running a kernel, it's a helper function, and not really
tied to the kernel per se.

Just rig your kernel update process to add a section where you run the
command that builds an initramfs. You already have so many steps where
you do exactly that in other areas so it's not a realistic issue, and
you take that in your stride. Or at it to the end of your kernel build
wrapper script if you wrote such a thing for yourself.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com