From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757565AbYEETrg (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 May 2008 15:47:36 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753272AbYEETr2 (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 May 2008 15:47:28 -0400 Received: from 74-93-104-97-Washington.hfc.comcastbusiness.net ([74.93.104.97]:56428 "EHLO sunset.davemloft.net" rhost-flags-OK-FAIL-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753183AbYEETr2 (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 May 2008 15:47:28 -0400 Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 12:47:22 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <20080505.124722.25907909.davem@davemloft.net> To: rusty@rustcorp.com.au Cc: torvalds@linux-foundation.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, jonathan@jonmasters.org, sam@ravnborg.org Subject: Re: changeset: Make forced module loading optional From: David Miller In-Reply-To: <200805060442.12440.rusty@rustcorp.com.au> References: <200805051535.05370.rusty@rustcorp.com.au> <200805060442.12440.rusty@rustcorp.com.au> X-Mailer: Mew version 5.2 on Emacs 22.1 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: Rusty Russell Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 04:42:12 +1000 > BTW, I'm fascinated and a little nausiated that you ignore initrds. We've > moved half the kernel brains to userspace with udev, initrd and modules; it's > really unfair that you're not sharing all that why-won't-my-machine-boot > love. It's pretty straightforward, if you ask me. I avoid initrd's like the plague too. Building and compressing the initrd would increase my build+reboot cycle time by at least 40%. Add to that it's simply an enormous pain in the ass. And for what? I know what freakin' drivers to build statically into my kernel. I use raw partitions and don't use LVM, I know what the heck my root filesystem device is named, etc. The only thing I get "punished" for, where I am absolutely forced to use an initrd, is when I use qlogic SCSI for the root partition, for the firmware which we really should have kept in the tree :( And this is not even a "licensing" issue, like it or not in-kernel drivers are tied to specific firmware versions both from an API and from a testing perspective. Externalizing this is really a nightmare. And I'm not avoiding udev by doing this. udev works just fine if I raw boot a kernel with all the static devices I need to get root mounted. All my networking etc. is modular and udev does the right thing.