On 2/24/06, Sarith Lambu <sarith.lambu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, > please explain me what is the importance of initrd file in /boot.If I > compile the kernel and need to boot the system with the new kernel what are > all the procedure i should do. How to make a initrd ??? > An initrd is usually used when you need to load kernel modules before the root filesystem is mounted (such as if you need to load the driver for the filesystem used on "/" before "/" is mounted). If you build everything into the kernel instead of as modules - or if you just build in everything needed to get to the point of mounting "/" and then have the remaining things as modules, then you do not need an initrd at all. Personally I find it a lot easier to just build in the basic drivers that are needed for my system to boot and mount the root fs, and then load additional stuff as modules, than mucking around with initrd's. To make an initrd (if you need and/or want one) you use the mkinitrd tool (man mkinitrd). For a good description of initrd and how to make one, you could read the very fine README.initrd file that ships with the Slackware Linux distribution. You can find it online here: ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-10.2/testing/packages/linux-2.6.13/README.initrd Hope this helps you. -- Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@xxxxxxxxx> Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
