On Sat, Apr 09, 2016 at 07:11:31AM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote
>
> An initramfs is just a secondary bootloader for userspace. I almost
> always use them even if I'm just booting a VM with a single partition
> on it. If something goes wrong you can fall back to a shell in the
> initramfs and it is like having a rescue disk built into your system
> disk. For a more complex setup it is much more robust than relying on
> the kernel to find your root, and it also lets you build with a more
> module-based kernel, which has some benefits as well even if you build
> kernels tailored to each host.
Another point that just occurred to me...
- get a machine with 128 gigs of RAM
- put *ALL* software on the initramfs
- when initramfs comes up, it won't have to hand off control to the
"real init", because everything will be running off initramfs. A
hard drive will only be used for storing data, and config files.
What worries me is a future where only initramfs images will boot on
UEFI machines. Make that *SIGNED* initramfs images. I'm sure Microsoft
would love that. initramfs images with annual licence fees, hard-coded
telemetry to the mothership, and forced "upgrades" every so often.
--
Walter Dnes <[email protected]>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
