On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 01:29:16AM -0800, Ryan wrote:
> I downgraded to gcc 2.95 and the kernel compiles now, so now I am trying to
> install it. I kept getting errors during the boot up, some of which included "no
> ext3 support" but I'm assuming that can be fixed by adding extra options into
> the menuconfig. I want to use the grub and I'm seeing this in the grub.conf
> 
> title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-24.7.x)
>         root (hd0,0)
>         kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-24.7.x ro root=/dev/hda1
>         initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-24.7.x.img
> 
> I want to add my new kernel /boot/bzImage
> I was wondering what the last line with the initrd does. I couldn't find
> anywhere online that was particularly useful about what this does. So currently
> in my conf file I have

This is for an initial RAM disk---a temporary root filesystem, typically used
to hold modules (e.g., the ext3 filesystem module when the real root
filesystem is ext3 but the kernel does not have ext3 compiled in, or the hard
drive is SCSI but SCSI support is not compiled in). Many installers use the
initial RAM disk to allow a single generic kernel to be used for all
installations.

There is some information about initial RAM disks here in the man page:
initrd(4).

-- 
Henry House
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