On Thu, Oct 2, 2025, at 3:26 AM, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Chris Murphy:
>
>> But that isn't the only problem. The nohostonly/generic/rescue
>> initramfs has grown to > 250 MB on desktop variants. The nvidia
>> firmware alone is > 99 MB in this initramfs. [2]
>
> Why do we need GPU firmware in initramfs?  Is it for flicker-free boot?

Uncertain. My vague understanding is the firmware is needed at the time the 
graphics card is initialized. I don't know how much latitude timing wise there 
is for that.

Large firmware take longer to read from disk, must be fully decompressed and 
dearchived because cpio. And it's possible that the initramfs remains resident 
in memory indefinitely - I don't know whether it's garbage collected or when or 
how. Is it subject to eviction by swap? No idea. We should find out.

Certainly initramfs of this size makes me wonder if they are worth it at all. 
Just go to kernel only boot, get to rootfs mount as fast as possible, and 
whooo, all that firmware is right there on /usr


-- 
Chris Murphy
-- 
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