Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Mike Edenfield <kutulu@××××××.org>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: RE: [gentoo-user] Re: After /usr conflation: why not copy booting software to /sbin rather than initramfs?
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 02:12:18
Message-Id: 002401cd0e1a$4c75cea0$e5616be0$@kutulu.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: After /usr conflation: why not copy booting software to /sbin rather than initramfs? by Neil Bothwick
1 > From: Neil Bothwick [mailto:neil@××××××××××.uk]
2 > Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 8:04 PM
3 > To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
4 > Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: After /usr conflation: why not copy booting
5 > software to /sbin rather than initramfs?
6 >
7 > On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:35:36 -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
8 >
9 > > >> Don't forget boot-time X-based animation, too. That's an
10 > > >> extraordinarily common feature of mainstream desktop distributions.
11 > > >> And there will be other things, I'm sure.
12 > > >
13 > > > I don't get involved with those, but I'd hope something intended to be
14 > > > run so early would have minimal dependencies, if any.
15 > >
16 > > There's a pretty firm distinction between what things get used for,
17 > > and what they're intended for. The udev developers presumably were
18 > > reacting to this when they decided to support an "anything goes"
19 > > policy regarding plugscript behavior.
20 > >
21 > > And while I'm generally the kind of person to find unintended (but
22 > > perfectly compatible with their spec) uses for things, I don't figure
23 > > on being one to do so in my init sequence. That said, someone else
24 > > will.
25 >
26 > I know what you mean, but here we are discussing something being used for
27 > its intended purpose. If a bootsplash program is not designed to work
28 > well a the start of the boot process, you have to wonder what it will be
29 > good for.
30
31 splashutils, which is the package dracut uses to generate a boot splash
32 image, has a lot of dependencies but requires they all be built
33 USE=static-libs. Plymouth, which does animated boot splash, is a bit worse;
34 it installs a few dozen files, about half of that data. Then again, if
35 you're putting an animated boot splash image on your initramfs, I don't
36 think you're all that worried about space :)
37
38 --Mike

Replies