On Fri, 16 Nov 2018 21:10:54 +0100
Irrwahn <irrwahn@???> wrote:


> The part about "acquire, monopolize and decompatablize the tools to
> create initramfs" is ridiculous,

The preceding half sentence encapsulates the belief difference that
causes our different stances on merging /sbin with anything else. PRF
(Poettering/Redhat/Freedesktop) has developers paid probably in excess
of a million dollars a year to [work on | obfuscate] Linux, whereas
guys like us must undo their obfuscations on our own time, between
bouts of paid work.

> as an initrd is nothing more than an
> (optionally compressed) cpio archive, loaded by the Linux kernel
> itself.

The preceding is exactly like saying, "as an init system is nothing
more than a PID1 and either some rc scripts, a process supervisor, or a
combination of both". The nature of an initramfs can be changed just
like the nature of an init can, and I have a feeling it could be done
without changes to the kernel. Like an init system only more so, an
initramfs runs in its own environment and is difficult to get your
voltmeter probes into, so experimentation and troubleshooting necessary
to back out PRF (Poettering/Redhat/Freedesktop) mods is difficult and
time consuming.

SteveT

Steve Litt
November 2018 featured book: Manager's Guide to Technical
Troubleshooting Brand new, second edition
http://www.troubleshooters.com/mgr