James Rayner wrote: > On 3/2/06, Dimitrios Apostolou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>Thomas Bächler wrote: >> >>>Dimitrios Apostolou wrote: >>> >>> >>>>I think it is a problem that the initrd used in arch loads many modules >>>>that are completely useless, which can't be removed later. It just >>>>insmod 's all possible modules for all possible hardware. My purpose is >>>>to raise a discussion on what can be done to alleviate the problem. >>> >>> >>>Customize your mkinitrd.conf by changing AUTODETECT=0 to AUTODETECT=1, then >>>rebuild your initrd with >>>the mkinitrd auto command, reboot, and they are gone. >> >>OK, but by doing this you don't solve the problem, only bypass it. You >>have a specific initrd for your own system, like having built a specific >>kernel, and if the hardware changes you 'll face a new problem. I'm >>curious how it can be solved while retaining the generic initrd. How do >>other distros do it? >> > > > Other distros dont do it. They give you one massive initrd with all the > modules that either loads lots or autodetects to an extent, or compile them > in. As for compiling them in, despite there being more loaded, it appears > less to the users, thus no users complaining.
My primary concern is that necessary modules should be autoloaded by default. Since module autoloading is enabled in the kernel insmod should be redundant for any of them. I have two theories: 1) Modules can't be autoloaded with a static /dev so we need udev in the initrd too. However, I'm pretty sure I remember module autoloading was doable in the old days too, with a static /dev. 2) The modprobe utility is missing from the initrd, so module autoloading can't happen. Anyway, I'm just speculating. What does any developer think? > > As for modules marked permanent, that usually means the module is in use and > cannot be removed. For example, the ide driver on one of my systems is piix, > and thus it is marked permanent as that is the ide which my root filesystem > is mounted on. Not in my case, I have dozens of unused modules (used by 0, when doing lsmod), which *certainly* don't correspont to any piece of my hardware, and some of them are marked permanent. Thanks, Dimitris _______________________________________________ arch mailing list [email protected] http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch
