Hi,

Steve Litt writes:

> On Fri, 16 Nov 2018 20:19:57 +0100
> Irrwahn <irrwahn@???> wrote:
>
>> Hendrik Boom wrote on 16.11.18 19:08:
>> [...]
>> > (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
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Now if *I* put it outside of the root file system you have a point but
what if a package maintainer does so? I don't have the time (or don't
want to spend the time needed) to check every time I install or upgrade
packages. To me, initramfs looks like a relatively decent attempt at
*trying* to make sure in a dynamically adapting way and on an as needed
basis that my system can still boot after package upgrades and installs.

Perhaps mkinitramfs can be modified to only generate an initramfs if one
is needed? But doing so also means that update-grub needs to be changed
to take the possibility of no initramfs into account. Maybe it already
does? Don't know.

Hope this helps,
--
Olaf Meeuwissen, LPIC-2            FSF Associate Member since 2004-01-27
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