On 16 August 2011 01:01, Dave Dowell <[email protected]> wrote: > On ARM systems you always need to tell it to load the kernel image. What > happens then is very dependent upon how things have been built. > > For example it's possible to build a combined image where the kernel and the > initrd are rolled into one package, or more often they're kept as seperate > images. > In the case of ARMedslack the kernel and the initrd are kept seperate, this > makes modifying things easier. > > The initrd itself can do different things dependent on how it was designed. > For example the initrd on the Sheevaplug uClibc Debian system is the actual > root filesystem, the same is true for the iConnect Debian uClibc system. > > The ARMedslack initrd is only a initial ramdisk, which contains relevant > modules (in your specific case the module for ext2fs) to allow the kernel to > access the real root device. So the initrd is about giving the kernel the > ability to access the real root device, so that it can mount the real root > filesystem and continue the system bringup, read up on pivot root to find > out more about this. > > It should be possible to compile a kernel to include the necessary drivers > to directly access the real root device, although I've not tried that yet. > It is possible to combine a kernel and initrd into a single image, and thus > only load one file into memory and boot that, but that's not the design in > play here. > It is possible to use an initrd as the real rootdev, but reducing it to fit > into the flash memory available onboard most ARM devices requires a lot of > work yet, and isn't really in scope for the straight port of Slackware to > ARM. > > I hope that covers your questions? > Thanks > Dave
Thanks Dave, it does answer my questions, although I still need to to find my ABC of ARM computing. Not having a real device to to play with (but I am thinking of one in particular, so watch this space) I still have to connect the bits and pieces from QEMU to the real world while in the x86/64 world it's a bit more straightforward. -- Ottavio A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? _______________________________________________ ARMedslack mailing list [email protected] http://lists.armedslack.org/mailman/listinfo/armedslack
