On 09/08/2011 10:35, Rich Freeman wrote: > It may have changed, but at least in the past you couldn't have root on a > raid5 without an initramfs - you definitely couldn't have it on LVM. So, if > you wanted to run LVM on raid5, you had to have a separate root that was > raid1 with the older metadata that on-disk looks like a non-raid partition > superficially.
I think that changed a LONG time ago when mdadm was moved to /sbin. Also, if you set your partition types to "Linux raid auto" (0xfd), the kernel would auto-detect all raid drives and assemble them properly. I run my SGI systems with /usr as both a separate partition and split across multiple drives, and they have always found and mounted all partitions correctly. > In any case, I think we need to pick our battles. If every other distro > goes one way, then we need to consider whether being different is really > adding value, or if it is simply being different. Sure, we just need to watch out for cliffs. And make sure we don't inadvertently lead anyone else off of one, either. > Most distros used an initramfs because they wanted to have one-size-fits-all > kernels. Gentoo doesn't do it that way, and hasn't needed initramfs as much > as a result. However, in the linux world initramfs has evolved from simply > being a way to modprobe the drivers needed to mount root to an extra > bootloader that allows for more complex partitioning schemes (btrfs, lvm, > raid, etc), disk encryption, and much smarter detection logic (mounting by > UUID and not by a device name that is not guaranteed to be stable). Windows has long done drive mounts by the drive serial # (or some number is derives from them). And sticks it into that abomination called the registry. I did a drive migration once in Windows, and it was far from fun until I found the registry keys holding those serials and nuked them so the thing would re-locate the drives and mount them. I'm not against using initramfs this way, but I just want to raise attention to the possibility that there might be other options out there. I would imagine that for simple setups, where encryption, llvm/btrfs/etc, and other things beyond simple mdadm raid are not needed, that we align our scripts to still make a separate /usr possible. Surely we can detect that with an initscript somewhere. > The alternative is to spend huge amounts of time maintaining system packages > just so that we can be different. Isn't this what we do already? :) -- Joshua Kinard Gentoo/MIPS ku...@gentoo.org 4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28 "The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between." --Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic
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