Bruce Dubbs wrote: > Bryan Kadzban wrote: >> It doesn't remove the need for an initramfs. What it does do, is >> remove the need for a separate /boot partition in many initramfs >> cases (since grub2 can read LVM and I think some RAID types -- but >> not, I think, dm-crypt). > > Well I don't know what dm-crypt is
(Encrypted block device. Specifically for this case, the rootfs.) > but in any case, GRUB2 aka GRUB-1.97 handles the majority of cases. It handles finding the kernel (and initramfs file), yes. > If we need an initrd, then it should be in BLFS, not LFS. Probably. Or at least a hint to start with. Sort of like the one I wrote. :-P >> The bootloader doesn't mount the root FS; if the root FS is on some >> setup that the kernel can't autoconfig (like LVM or dm-crypt), >> then you need an initramfs either way. :-) > > I'm not sure about what the kernel can do, but as far as LFS/BLFS go, > we don't even have the LVM commands (e.g. pvcreate, etc.) in either > book. True; we don't support this at all today. (My hint, mumble. :-P ) > I haven't tried it, but I'd think that if the right drivers were > installed, then the kernel could mount it. I have tried it. The kernel *can* set up LVM logical volumes, but will *not* do so on its own. It needs the LVM userspace tool to run, and to tell it to do so. Same with some kinds of RAID -- it can assemble a RAID array, but won't (always) do it on its own. (It can autoassemble some types of md-raid, I think, but I'm not sure how well-maintained that is. It won't do anything with dm-raid, since that's only a device-mapper map; the kernel can't know about all possible maps that people might want, and when to apply each. Or at least that's their argument.) The impression that I get from various upstream discussions that I've seen over the past few years is that they expect everything to use an initramfs; they currently sort of tolerate the fact that the kernel will mount a "raw" partition on its own, and will handle a couple of other cases on its own. But they won't add that feature for *any* other setup. Again, this is all related to mounting the rootfs. GRUB2 does simplify a lot of setups that still require an initramfs, so that they don't need a separate (non-LVM, sometimes even non-RAID) /boot partition.
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