Re: [CFT] initramfs patch

[Mike Touloumtzis <miket@bluemug.com>]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2001 at 04:49:15PM -0400, Alexander Viro wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Mike Touloumtzis wrote:
> 
> > One thing that would make embedded systems developers very happy
> > is the ability to map a romfs or cramfs filesystem directly from
> > the kernel image, avoiding the extra copy necessitated by the cpio
> > archive.  Are there problems with this approach?
> 
> a) IIRC, both are read-only.

Hmmm, maybe we need ramfs-backed-by-romfs :-).  But a lot of people
in the embedded/consumer electronics space could get by just fine
with a read-only / and a ramfs or ramdisk on /tmp.

> b) what stops you from doing initramfs + romfs-on-initrd? It works.

-- Having the FS image compiled into the kernel allows a linker script
   to specify the alignment requirements for the FS.

-- initrd is a yucky special case.  What I'm advocating is just a
   standard way of addressing compiled-in filesystems using the normal
   /dev namespace.

miket