Posted Nov 27, 2006 6:17 UTC (Mon) by ldo (subscriber, #40946)
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>That does make some sense, but I've never seen that capability used.
On the contrary. Look at most binary-based Linux distros (that is, most Linux distros), for example (looking at ones on machines I have immediate access to) SuSE or Red Hat. They tend to come with only a small selection of pre-built kernels to choose from. But rather than build in every driver you might need at boot time into the kernel, you have to make an initrd that includes the necessary kernel modules that will need to be loaded even before the root filesystem can be mounted.
Re: why separate initramfs
Posted Dec 5, 2006 21:22 UTC (Tue) by hazelsct (guest, #3659)
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It's used all the time in Debian. For example, upgrading udev or other utilities, adding or removing uswsusp support (suspend functionality) or the various splash screen programs, etc. Very useful.