Re: [gentoo-user] startup script use the wrong find command

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 07 December 2009 03:00:29 Xi Shen wrote:
> yes, i installed busybox into the initramfs i created my self. because
> i see the initramfs generated by genkernel uses it.
>
> i am using LVM, so i have to use a initramfs. are you suggesting that
> i should install all the GNU utilities into the initramfs? i think
> that would create a very large initramfs file.

Do you mean / on LVM?

Personally, I don't trust busybox on full scale installs, or on anything 
that's not embedded. Busybox necessarily omits certain features to keep the 
size and simplicity down whereas boot utilities are too often written for GNU 
tools.



>
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 4:42 AM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>
wrote:
> > On Friday 04 December 2009 17:25:21 Alex Schuster wrote:
> >> Xi Shen writes:
> >> > when i boot my system, at the step "Wiping /tmp", it pops up an error
> >> > message saying that the find command do not support the '-uid' option.
> >> > in the error message, i also see the busybox mark. it looks like it
> >> > used the wrong find command.
> >>
> >> Did you emerge busybox with the make-symlinks USE flag? When your
> >> original find is replaced by a link to busybox.
> >
> > That's unlikely. His box will likely not boot if he did that. If it does
> > boot it certainly will not emerge anything. Portage relies on features
> > that are present in GNU utilities and are not there in busybox
> >
> >> Don't know what to do exactly, most probably many other commands will
> >> also not work as expected, I guess you need to re-emerge all stuff that
> >> provides them, like findutils. There was a thread recently, look for
> >> "/bin contains busybox executables after installing busybox-1.13.2" by
> >> Amit Dor- Shifer on 2009-11-25.
> >
> > He likely installed busybox into the initramfs instead of GNU utilities.
> >
> > initramfs on gentoo is not a technique I recommend. It is designed for a
> > general use-case not present in Gentoo[1], and a very few specific cases
> > where an initramfs-less setup cannot work[2[
> >
> > [1] Binary distros cannot know upfront what the end-user has
> > hardware-wise, so cannot build drivers for everything imaginable into the
> > kernel. An initramfs is an elegant solution, but one which is overkill
> > for Gentoo (the initial statement is usually false)
> >
> > [2] Some specific boot scenarios require an initramfs even on Gentoo -
> > booting off raided volumes where drivers are needed at boot time,
> > encrypted / volumes, / on an LVM volume and a few others
> >
> > In almost all other cases it is simpler and easier to dispense with the
> > initramfs and build two drivers into the kernel. After all, the user in
> > all probability knows exactly what hardware they have
> >
> >
> > --
> > alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
>

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com