Re: initrd loading of boot-modules
Rene Mayrhofer <rene.mayrhofer@vianova.at> writes:
> Hi there
>
> I am currently working on a extension to the debian kernel-package that
> will allow modules needed for mounting the root partition to be loaded
> from an initrd image. It works for me now (I am writing this on an IDE
> system with ide compiled in as a module). I think that it will make life
> easier for new users (RedHat does something similiar), especially on
> scsi systems where sometimes you have to recompile the kernel. This
> would enable us to use a really small kernel with just everything
> compiled as a module and loaded before the root partition is mounted.
> You can give the list of modules to load by a parameter on the kernel
> command line. This parameter is parsed by my program which tries to load
> every module listed there.
I´m doing something very similar for my live filesystem (demo-fs). I
boot using a kernel with just ramdisk and framebuffer support compiled
in and nothing much else and a initial ramdisk. The linuxrc script on
that ramdisk mount proc and starts modconf and after thats done it
remount root from hda7. Well thats it for the moment but I´m working
on more.
I plan to use the proc filesystem to autodetect what hardware is
installed and load the relevant modules and if everything fails ask
the user via modconf.
Now the bad bits:
Its all to big and wont fit onto one disk. The 2.2.12 kernel is a
little bigger than the 2.0.36 on the slink rescue disk (namely 433003
Byte) and a 4 Mb ramdisk containing the common modules takes more than
1 MB as gzip file.
Of cause one can save a lot when using the smaler binaries from the
rescue disk (instead of the dynamically linked once normaly found) and
a smaller ramdisk could also reduce the size of the compressed
file. We will see.
What kernel are you using and how are your sizes?
May the Source be with you.
Goswin
PS: I waste a lot of space for modconf at the moment, but I will solve
that soon.
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