Hi Linus, On Sun, Feb 2, 2020 at 3:45 AM Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 8:06 PM Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > - simplify built-in initramfs creation > > Hmm. > > This may simplify it from a _technical_ angle, but it seems to be a > fairly annoying step backwards from a UI perspective. > > Now Kconfig asks a completely pointless question that most people have > absolutely zero interest in. The old situation was better, I feel. > > Basically, I feel that from a "get normal users to test development > kernels", our Kconfig pain ends up being the biggest hurdle by far. > > The kernel is easy to build and doesn't really require all that much > infrastructure, but generating the config - particularly when it > changes over time and you can't just say "just use the distro config" > - is a big step for people. > > So honestly, while I've pulled this, I feel that this kind of change > is going _exactly_ the wrong way when it asks people questions that > they don't care one whit about. > > If I as a kernel developer can't find it in myself to care and go "why > does it ask this new question", then that should tell you something. > > Why do we have this choice in the first place? Generally, initramfs is passed from a boot-loader, but some architectures embed initramfs into vmlinux (perhaps due to poor boot-loader support??) arch/arc/configs/tb10x_defconfig:CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE="../tb10x-rootfs.cpio" arch/unicore32/configs/defconfig:#CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE="arch/unicore/ramfs/ramfs_config" arch/xtensa/configs/cadence_csp_defconfig:CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE="$$KERNEL_INITRAMFS_SOURCE" So, data-compression is useful - that's is what I understand. For major architectures, vmlinux embeds a tiny initramfs, which is generated based on usr/default_cpio_list. We do not need data-compression for such a small cpio, but handling it in a consistent way is sensible. This is annoying from the users' PoV, I admit. > And no, it's not a > "simplification" to make life more complex for users. > > Linus -- Best Regards Masahiro Yamada
