On Thursday, September 15, 2011 05:38:41 PM Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: > On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 5:30 PM, Joost Roeleveld <jo...@antarean.org> wrote: > > On Thursday, September 15, 2011 03:04:37 PM Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: > >> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 1:59 PM, Mick <michaelkintz...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > On Thursday 15 Sep 2011 16:13:26 Michael Schreckenbauer wrote: > >> > 1. The minimal initramfs will only need to be built once (and > >> > rarely > >> > rebuilt thereafter). This removes one of my fears and it was a > >> > main > >> > objection for me - I would hate to have to rebuild initramfs every > >> > time I roll a new kernel, or libs and what not of fs happen to be > >> > udpated, etc. > >> > >> In my experience, it takes more time to build the kernel than it takes > >> to rebuild the initramfs. And if you choose to use dracut, the process > >> is automatic (you always call dracut with the same options, unless you > >> suddenly add LVM or something similar). > > > > Canek, as you've been using dracut already extensively, is it possible > > to set default options/modules/whatever to get to the situation where > > simply running "dracut" without any extra options will always recreate > > the correct initramfs? > The modules get defined by the DRACUT_MODULES variable, which is > use-expanded. The options are configured in /etc/dracut.conf, but I > believe there are some command line options not configurable.
The developers suggested I try dracut and I do intend to do that. My problem is, the one most likely affected by this is also the one I want to experiment the least with. Guess I'll have to test this inside a VM. > >> I didn't use an initramfs for my first years using Gentoo. Since I > >> started to use media-gfx/splashutils a couple of years ago, every time > >> I upgraded my kernel, I splash_geninitramfs'd my initramfs. Now I do > >> the same, but with plymouth and systemd using dracut. It's just part > >> of the process of getting a new kernel. > > > > And, if the initramfs has other tools in it, after every emerge of these > > tools. This is where I see a possible cause for failure as then the > > situation arises where the initramfs will still start "correctly", but > > because it's using older tools it's possible that older versions and > > new versions start running simultaneously and get mixed up in a way > > that is not immediately apparent. > > I see it the other way around: you ensure that your initramfs is in > sync with your system. In other words: the initramfs contains a subset > of your normal installation. That is why it makes redundant /lib, > /sbin and /bin. The reason I ditched lilo when grub came out was because I always would forget to run the lilo-command. (Another was that lilo wouldn't work on a new machine, but that's not important) The same will be true for dracut. And probably not just for me. The on-disk-format may stay the same and the tools (am thinking LVM here) should always be able to find my filesystems. But, what if the initramfs does the fsck with older tools? Currently, the fsck runs before actually mounting the filesystems. If the filesystems end up being pre-mounted, when will fsck run and which version? -- Joost
