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On 19/08/2013 16:33, pk wrote: |
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> Using an initramfs means you duplicate parts of your OS and copy them |
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> into the kernel or using a tool (like dracut or genkernel). If you need |
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> it from a technical point of view (bluetooth keyboard), that's fine but |
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> if I don't have any hardware that requires it then why use an initramfs? |
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> I guess it's a matter of taste (or "philosophy" if you will)... An |
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> initramfs seems like bandaid to me (and it is). |
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I snipped most of the thread as I don't want to revisit yet again and |
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old horse that is much flogged already :-) |
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We're not too different, you and I, if I may dare say it when we differ |
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it's you tend a little more towards idealism and I towards realism. |
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Yes, bluetooth sucks, but it was designed by what was available at the |
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time and it's what we have. For that matter USB, spinning disks and lack |
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of fibre into my house also suck, but we have to work with what we have |
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and what we certainly will have soon. Same with initramfs. Does it suck? |
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Of course it does, it just sucks less than any other realistic proposal |
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I've ever seen. And tricky bootstrap problems are tricky - always have |
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been since the 50s and always will be. |
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Which brings me to what I am really trying to say - giving specific |
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examples to highlight general problems is always a nasty road to |
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navigate. Like bluetooth keyboards, there's always a non-trivial number |
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who can claim that the example does not apply to *them*. One can go |
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round and round in circles with that, and skirt the actual issue: |
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Software exists in the context of something bigger and for us that often |
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means "maximally useful for the maximum number of folks inclined to use |
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such a package" and that sweet spot includes compromises; some things |
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just have to be laid in stone so that everything else works at all - |
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sometimes we just have to accept that. |
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Let's look at /usr by comparing it to /opt. I like /opt - all the crap |
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from Oracle, IBM, Sybase and Sun my managers shove on me goes in there |
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where I can at least corral it. I can agree with that setup. |
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I can even agree with a "system" vs "userspace" split ala / vs /usr, |
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although the distinction is very murky indeed, but do I really need it? |
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Yes, it can be useful and even if I make a case for it, does it really |
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need to be it's own partition? I'm carefully dodging around the niche |
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market for terminal servers and /usr mounted over NFS here. I |
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respectfully submit that we could also solve that one using full PXE |
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boot, automount and unionfs or brethren. |
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Like I said earlier, software exists in the context of something bigger, |
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and Gentoo exists in the context of the FOSS community. We consume much |
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more code than we produce and sometimes we have to back down and go with |
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what the world is doing or be prepared to fork. |
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Incidentally, I don't see that anyone has ever proposed the obvious |
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sword to cut this knot - have the kernel automount /usr. it already does |
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/ and we have root= ... it wouldn't be hard to add /usr= ... |
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Yes, I know I'm being stupid and Linus would reply with two words, the |
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first starting with an f. He'd tell us to solve it the right way even if |
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that's the hard way. I believe separate /usr without initramfs is |
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rapidly becoming white elephant material, and we are faced with a |
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decision to do it the hard way. |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |
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