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Subject: Re: [Q] pivot_root and initrd
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.33L.0110231759020.3690-100000@imladris.surriel.com>
Organization: TMR Associates, Schenectady NY
From: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen)
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In article <Pine.LNX.4.33L.0110231759020.3690-100000@imladris.surriel.com>,
Rik van Riel <riel@conectiva.com.br> wrote:
| On Tue, 23 Oct 2001, bill davidsen wrote:
| > In article <9r4c24$g2k$1@cesium.transmeta.com>,
| > H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
| >
| > | The right thing is to get rid of the old initrd compatibility cruft,
| > | but that's a 2.5 change.
| >
| >   Get rid of??? As long as you have some equivalent capability to get
| > the system up.
| 
| pivot_root(2) in combination with pivot_root(8)

I wasn't really asking about changing root after the system is up, the
part needed is the uncompressing of the filesystem into a ramdisk root f/s
or some such. After that it's pretty much open to any of several techniques.

Getting the modules loaded to support the root f/s and run a little rc
file to get things going is the bootstrap operation, and that's where
initrd is vital. You really don't want to build a kernel for every
machine if you have more than a few! One kernel and a few config and
initrd files is vastly easier.

What replaces the initial step?

-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  His first management concern is not solving the problem, but covering
his ass. If he lived in the middle ages he'd wear his codpiece backward.