From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754008AbZHGQON (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Aug 2009 12:14:13 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753808AbZHGQOM (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Aug 2009 12:14:12 -0400 Received: from automation-pros.com ([72.243.156.18]:44925 "EHLO smtp.automation-pros.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753804AbZHGQOM (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Aug 2009 12:14:12 -0400 X-Greylist: delayed 1335 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:14:11 EDT Message-ID: <4A7C4C8C.1050006@turmel.org> Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:47:24 -0400 From: Phil Turmel User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 (Windows/20090605) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Greg KH CC: David Dillow , Andi Kleen , Greg KH , Alan Cox , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Kay Sievers , Jan Blunck , Harald Hoyer , Scott James Remnant Subject: Re: [PATCH] Driver Core: devtmpfs - kernel-maintained tmpfs-based /dev References: <20090805171513.GA10443@kroah.com> <20090805192037.19c54c4d@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20090805182805.GA7534@kroah.com> <20090805185136.GA21442@kroah.com> <87ljlxhrnr.fsf@basil.nowhere.org> <1249575658.19886.8.camel@lap75545.ornl.gov> <20090806183147.GA28409@suse.de> In-Reply-To: <20090806183147.GA28409@suse.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Greg KH wrote: > On Thu, Aug 06, 2009 at 12:20:58PM -0400, David Dillow wrote: >> On Thu, 2009-08-06 at 17:46 +0200, Andi Kleen wrote: >>> Greg KH writes: >>>> It makes the userspace boot process much simpler and easier to maintain, >>>> as well as providing a way to handle rescue disks and images trivially, >>>> and it makes the kernel _less_ dependant on the early userspace bootup >>>> scripts. >>> As a initrd less kernel user I can really only agree: getting rid >>> of the udev-in-initrd requirement would be a big step forward >>> in usability. Typically I always have to pre populate >>> a on disk /dev manually first to get my kernels to boot. >> If you use mount by label or UUID, you still need udev (or other tools) >> in the initrd to find the right disk, correct? > > Yes, you would. > Might be straying off-topic here, but I find software raid to be particularly useful in this case. I've been using it on my home server for a few years now, including through the transition from ide to libata. The kernel autostart for md devices has been rock-solid, and successfully hides the real device name. No initramfs required. You might want to adapt the md+lvm setup from the gentoo docs [1], even if you only have one disk (degraded mirror). The only gotcha I've encountered was forgetting to set up grub after replacing a failed disk, and it happened to be first in line in the BIOS. Didn't notice 'till an extended power outage forced a reboot. Phil [1] http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86+raid+lvm2-quickinstall.xml