On Thu 11 Jan 2018 at 20:26:24 (+0100), deloptes wrote: > Greg Wooledge wrote: > > > I don't actually know how many cpio archives are concatenated together > > in that image. At least two, obviously, with the first uncompressed > > and the second gzipped. > > This kernel is custom, produced on one stretch system. On other stretch > system another custom image is as you describe it. Something must be > responsible for producing those images on stretch in different format. Who > knows what is that exactly - would save me some time - is it automatically > done by size or an option somewhere?
It seems likely that it's because you can add blobs to a preexisting initramfs without polluting it/having to unpack and repack it. Greg's example seems to contain an Intel blob. Not compressing it could be down to futility, or even licence restrictions (not "hiding" it). https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/243657/appending-files-to-initramfs-image-reliable BTW the necessity of directories to be unpacked before their contents still pertains, ie ignore the trick in "cpio -o"'s manpage about using find … -depth to create archives in case you are tempted. Cheers, David.