On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 08:43:07PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
Exactly. To give you an idea, I have a lot of servers running on a
"firmware" which consists in two parts :
- a bzImage containing an initramfs with modules and a few scripts
- an initrd which is in fact the rootfs
When the kernel boots, it mounts the initrd, does a pivot_root and mounts
its modules into /boot/$(uname -r). All my kernels run modules from /boot
and not from /lib/modules, because it makes them more convenient to add
and remove. So /lib/modules is just a symlink to /boot.
The above process is very convenient, as it is compatible with a lot of
boot methods : hard disk, CDROM, USB stick, PXE, etc...
And moreover, I can have multiple kernels with only one rootfs (SMP, etc).
Introducing firmware there would mean a major thinking and rework of the
build (and possibly boot) process. The least invasive would probably be
to stuff them next to the modules in $(uname -r)/firmware, but even then,
it will take a lot of time to switch to a new system.
And judging from what I see around, I'm far from being the only one not
using mkinitrd.
Willy
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