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alphalpha

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2018-01-23

Posts: 146  

init bloat

https://firasuke.github.io/DOTSLASHLINU … initramfs/
sounds like a fun project for a cold winter day

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 387  

Re: init bloat

How is this news (or "myth", "legend", "the truth", "nightmare", other infantile hyperbole in your link), or even particularly useful (beyond embedded systems with miserably small storage)?

Yes, you can compile in all the drivers you need and boot without dynamic /dev or early module loading. That's how it was done when compiling your own kernel was normal practice and booting from a floppy disk was a thing.
It's still quite possible to go that way, assuming you know what drivers you need to mount root. Systemd might make life difficult, but that's nothing new either.

I still have a bunch of Slackware 7 boot disks on my desk, and besides needing to pick the right one for your hardware (because that's the price for no initrd and a 1.4MB kernel), there's nothing particularly fun or novel about them... They're just minimal kernel images with disk controller and filesystem drivers compiled in.
So what? I mean it's trivial to boot even modern Slackware without an initrd, why the big writeup? That "guide" makes it sound like the dude just rediscovered fire or something

Last edited by steve_v (2024-11-01 09:05:48)

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alphalpha

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2018-01-23

Posts: 146  

Re: init bloat

things dont always have to be useful, all i said is, it sounds like a fun project
at least its news to me^^

i get why distro use initramfs
but from a more philosophical standpoint, its unnecessary bloat if you know your drivers

GNUser

Member

Registered: 2017-03-16

Posts: 570  

Re: init bloat

Hi alphaalpha. I dual boot Devuan and Tiny Core Linux. You may find it interesting that TCL does the opposite of what you're considering: It crams the entire (very tiny) OS into the initramfs. The result is a system that runs from RAM and is very fast.

More details at the links:

https://distrowatch.com/weekly-mobile.p … 23#feature

http://tinycorelinux.net/book.html

Have fun with initramfs. It's s good way to understand how linux works.