On Oct 27, 2009, at 11:08 AM, Bryan Kadzban wrote:
Actually, you don't need it for that, either. Mostly because the formatof the cpio archive that the kernel expands is rather simple, and because the kernel includes code to build this already.
The kernel make system includes the ability to translate an index file into a cpio archive. But that's a little cumbersome if you don't use exactly the same set of files with each build. You could use some sort of script to automatically build an index from a directory tree, but that sounds a lot like the archiving tool you're trying to avoid, except more poorly maintained.
I'm also not sure you can build an external image with the kernel- based cpio tools, which is the only way I know to include modules in the initramfs (since the built-in image is created before the modules are installed). And there's certainly no way to unpack and re-pack an image if you'd like to make a change.
I'm not saying that LFS necessarily needs cpio as part of the base -- frankly I'm of the general opinion that LFS should not try for LSB compliance other than maybe mentioning how you *could* do it with BLFS and the like. I'm just saying there's a fairly common (at least among users that build their own kernels and have non-trivial hardware rigs), non-RPM use for cpio archives.
Zach
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