From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751020AbWGKQY0 (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Jul 2006 12:24:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751074AbWGKQY0 (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Jul 2006 12:24:26 -0400 Received: from terminus.zytor.com ([192.83.249.54]:7048 "EHLO terminus.zytor.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751018AbWGKQYZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Jul 2006 12:24:25 -0400 Message-ID: <44B3D0A0.7030409@zytor.com> Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 09:24:00 -0700 From: "H. Peter Anvin" User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (X11/20060614) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Olaf Hering CC: Michael Tokarev , Roman Zippel , torvalds@osdl.org, klibc@zytor.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [klibc] klibc and what's the next step? References: <20060711044834.GA11694@suse.de> <44B37D9D.8000505@tls.msk.ru> <20060711112746.GA14059@suse.de> In-Reply-To: <20060711112746.GA14059@suse.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Olaf Hering wrote: > >>> The other group is the one that uses some sort of initrd (loop mount or cpio), >>> created with tools from their distribution. >>> Again, they should install that kinit binary as well because kinit emulates >>> the loop mount handling of /initrd.image. This is for older distributions >>> that still create a loop mounted initrd. >> There's no need for loop-mounting of any initrd.images. Initramfs (cpio image, >> possible gzipped) works just fine, and it will NOT go away because something >> should do the unpacking/loading of that image so that kinit &Co will run. >> There's no need for old initrd+pivot_root at all. Only the ones who are, >> for some reason, didn't switch to initramfs yet. And I personally see no >> reasons not to switch - initramfs (rootfs) concept is much more clean and >> easy to handle and gives more possibilities than initrd. > > Are you saying that everyone now suddenly is forced to use a cpio image? > Why did hpa add the loop mount code to kinit? > So if you force people who build kernels to use newer tools, one more > external binary will surely not hurt. When you say "loop mount code" I presume you mean legacy initrd support (which doesn't use loop mounting.) Legacy initrd support is provided to be as compatible as possible, obviously. And yes, it should be a configurable. Chopping kinit into configurable pieces is on my short list. -hpa