Hendrik Boom wrote on 16.11.18 19:08:
> (1) Is initramfs so weird that only one or two people in the world can
> make one?

No.

And even though stock De(bi|vu)an installations by default use an
initramfs (an intrd, to be precise): if you ever find yourself in a
position where you have to _manually_ tweak it, chances are high that
something much more fundamental is broken either in the distribution
itself or on your particular box.

> (2) What is initramfs good for? Linux used to work just fine without
> it.

It's only needed if you have to do stuff before running the `real´ init
process to bring up the system and all services. If, e.g., for some reason
you decided to place stuff like kernel modules or other essential system
components not in the root file system and therefore have to perform some
special action and mounting before being able to bring up user space in
its final form.

Most, if not all, contemporary Linux based operating systems should be
able to boot just fine without resorting to any kind of initramfs mechanism,
provided all the essential bits are located in the root-fs, and the kernel
has all the drivers necessary to access said root-fs compiled in.

Regards,
Urban
--
Sapere aude!