Re: separating initrd from initramfs: part 1

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hi Matthias,

for initrd

"This tree can then be archived into a single file using cpio or turned into a file-system image either by use of a loopback device or a small mountable device. The archive (or image file) can be compressed with gzip to further save space."

so initrd can be a cpio archive

thanks,
mitul modi

On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 5:35 PM, Matthias Kaehlcke <matthias@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
El Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 07:30:00PM -0400 Robert P. J. Day ha dit:

>
>   i started this discussion over on the embedded linux list, but it
> would seem to be more appropriate here so i'll start over, and i'll
> report back to the embedded list what the results are.
>
>   in short, i want to know if it's possible to separate the config
> selections of INITRD and INITRAMFS so you can choose them
> independently.  more specifically, i want to know if one can select
> (internal) INITRAMFS support without having to select (external)
> INITRD support, since many embedded systems find it handy to boot from
> that internal initramfs image, but may have no need whatsoever to
> support an external (what we've known historically as) initrd image.
> and leaving out initrd support looks like it might save some bytes.
> with me so far?
>
>   just to clarify the terminology, an "initrd" image would be an
> independent cpio-format image that you'd pass via, for example, grub,
> as in:
>
> title Fedora (2.6.25.11-97.fc9.i686)
>         root (hd0,0)
>         kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25.11-97.fc9.i686 ... etc etc ...
>         initrd /initrd-2.6.25.11-97.fc9.i686.img  <--- that

can an initrd image really have cpio format? i thought the image must
always be based on a "real" file system.

> while "initramfs" refers, of course, to the internal cpio-format image
> that you can build directly into the kernel image (see the contents of
> the top-level usr/ directory in the kernel source tree for the code
> that does that).

for me an initramfs is an cpio format image, but not containing
necessarily the kernel, it can be also passed to the kernel as a
parameter like an initrd

--
Matthias Kaehlcke
Embedded Linux Engineer
Barcelona

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