g4sra via Dng said on Tue, 18 Nov 2025 11:10:20 +0000

>On Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 at 04:04, Steve Litt
><slitt@???> wrote: -- snip --
>> If you don't object to having an initramfs, I don't see the
>> disadvantage of having everything in /usr/bin and having the other
>> stuff just be links.
>>
>
>-- snip --
>
>I DO.
>What is this obsession everybody has for complicating setups and
>increasing brittleness. There is only *two* good reasons for having an
>initramfs.
>
>1) To get the root filesystem mounted - because you have some exotic
>root filesystem which is not supported by the kernel.
>
>2) Because the initramfs *is* the root filesystem.
>
>The bad reason for having an initramfs is because the Distro forces it
>upon you filling it with loads of unnecessary junk that can
>break\conflict hardware and stall the bootstrap.
>
>If Red Hat had really been concerned with 'boot times' they would have
>done away with it.

You're right on every count. Trouble is, as far as I know, every
distro, poetterist, non-potterist and anti-poetterist uses an initramfs
to load the necessary disk drivers, so your alternative is to recompile
every kernel that comes your way. And then of course, I think you'd
need to static-compile mount, umount, and probably some other stuff,
and put it in non-standard places to avoid upgrade clobbering. How many
people recompile their kernels today?

And you know what? If initramfs were done right and used only to mount
the /root and /usr partitions (and maybe /lib or whatever), it wouldn't
be all that terrible. But nooooo, they gotta include everything and the
kitchen sink.

SteveT

Steve Litt

http://444domains.com