Klibc and initramfs [LWN.net]

Another incomplete 2.5 development item is initramfs - an initial filesystem attached to the kernel image. The plan is to move much of the early boot code into initramfs, so that it can be run in user mode. But there has not been a whole lot of progress in that direction.

One part of the process is klibc, a small C library to be used in initramfs applications. A patch exists which adds a working klibc to the 2.5.64 kernel, but Linus is not ready to merge it:

However, I also have to say that klibc is pretty late in the game, and as long as it doesn't add any direct value to the kernel build the whole thing ends up being pretty moot right now. It might be different if we actually had code that needed it (ie ACPI in user space or whatever).

In other words, unless some code which really needs klibc does not show up soon, it may not get merged into 2.5 at all. That would have the effect of pushing the whole initramfs project back into the next development series. There are people working on creating this code, but, as Linus says, it's late in the game.

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