On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 06:23:39AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > i only have a few minutes to reply to this, but i think you're > oversimplifying. there are two possible early root filesystems: > > 1) the *internal* initramfs > 2) the *external* initrd image > if you check the source in the init/ kernel source directory, you can > see that there are independent tests for those two things. maybe i'm > misunderstanding what you're saying, but what i'm after is whatever it > takes to retain, say, *either* of those two objects once the system > boots fully. If initramfs, not possible. Note that an external initrd passed to the kernel, if it is a compressed cpio archive with a /init binary, then it is an *initramfs*, no matter what the boot loader calls the option. > the kernel clearly defines the "retain_initrd" kernel parameter, so > i'm just curious as to its purpose. To preserve initrds. That is, filesystem images passed as an initrd that the kernel is supposed to execute *before* mounting the real root device. In initramfs, executing /init is the end of the boot process as far as the kernel is concerned. -- Luciano Rocha <luciano@xxxxxxxxxxx> Eurotux Informática, S.A. <http://www.eurotux.com/>
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