On Thu, 30 May 2002, David Fairey wrote:
One question: why do people seem to dislike initrd.img's? I'm gonna have to compile a kernel anyway cos I got all sorts of unresolved symbols, and some of the modules I'd prefer to have compiled in anyway.
Not sure why initrd's are disliked other than maybe speed?
I don't like them as they add a completly unneccesary layer of complexity to the boot process and if they go horribly wrong you can't fix them. The main reason for using them is so you can build your entire kernel as modules but I never really saw the point of this, as I don't see what real benefit you would get through doing this. You will save maybe a small amount of memory but then I don't think the amount you would save would be worth it to go to the effort of making a broken system. (plus nearly every time I have used one something has gone wrong)
Anyhow If anybody can tell me good uses for an initrd then answers on the back of an email to this list...
Adam