Re: [PATCH v10 0/2] dm: boot a mapped device without an initramfs

[Richard Weinberger <richard@nod.at>]

Helen,

Am Samstag, 3. November 2018, 04:53:39 CET schrieb Helen Koike:
> As mentioned in the discussion from the previous version of this patch, Android
> and Chrome OS do not use initramfs mostly due to boot time and size liability.

Do you have numbers on that?

I understand that using something like dracut with systemd inside is not what you
want from a boot time point of view.
But having an initramfs embedded into the kernel image which contains only a single
static linked binary can be *very* small and fast.
If you invest a little more time, you don't even need a libc, just fire up some
syscalls to setup your dm. I use this technique regularly on deeply embedded systems
to setup non-trivial UBIFS/crypto stuff.

Want I'm trying to say, before adding ad-hoc a feature to the kernel, we should be
very sure that there is no other way to solve this in a sane manner.
We have initramfs support for reasons.

Thanks,
//richard