On Thu, Dec 08, 2011 at 07:46:41PM +0000, Wookey wrote: > +++ Marco d'Itri [2011-12-08 20:16 +0100]: > > On Dec 07, Stephan Seitz <stse+deb...@fsing.rootsland.net> wrote: > > > > - the platform does not support an initramfs > > * I am still waiting for somebody to enumerate them, but I believe > > that I can design a suitable workaround > > Anything that needs to boot fast (which is a lot of consumer-oriented > equipment like TVs, phones, pdas, VOIP kit etc). One good way to do > this is not waste time with an intramfs that will soon be superceded > with a pivot-root. > > However in practice it is very hard to support this sort of thing in > Debian anyway, because the way you get fast booting is by removing all > the generality in scripts which check what sort of hardware and then > load appropriate modules, drivers, programs and firmwares, and > pre-configuring as much as possible. This approach directly > contradicts the 'universal OS' approach of making things as generic as > possible, and the requirments of a binary distro which has to build > binaries to support 'everything'.
Indeed. > So there probably aren't too many people who both _really really_ > don't want/can't have an initramfs and _also_ install Debian. Currently the only Debian architectures which doesn't use initramfs by default are the MIPS architectures. And I understand that most of the boot loaders for MIPS can actually support an initramfs. > Most arm bootloaders _can_ load an initramfs, or at least can load a > combined kernel+initramfs image (I'm not sure that debian tools can > _make_ a combined kernel+initrd image - I've always used another tool > like buildroot to do that?), so the number of platforms that can;t > support this at all is very small. We have a policy for kernel and initramfs hooks <http://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-update-hooks.html> that should allow that sort of thing to be done without the need for specific support by the kernel or initramfs packags. Ben. > There are quite good reasons why you wouldn't want to do thing that > way though. We should at least do our best not to make things > unreasonably difficult for people in this situation, even if we chose > not to really 'support' it. -- Ben Hutchings We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. - Albert Camus -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20111208201227.gn3...@decadent.org.uk
