Re: Initrd or not ? (was: SOLVED: New kernel unable to mount/see a whole HD)
On Tue, 2006-01-03 at 14:45 -0500, Joey Hess wrote:
> J.F. Gratton wrote:
> > - I know my hardware, it's unlikely to change in a near-future; a new
> > kernel is more likely to come out thant my hardware to change; why using
> > an initrd then if I know exactly what needs to be put in modules and
> > must not ?
>
> This assumes a best case scenario that you will never need to get some
> new peice of hardware working at a time when taking the time out to set
> up a new kernel will be painful. No matter what percentage of time this
> best case scenario is true, it will never be true 100% of the time, and
> as time goes on the chances that it will fail to be true at some point
> approaches one. Some of the failure scenarios are very painful. After it
> has failed to be true a couple of times, people tend to switch over to
> modular kernels.
>
I agree, although not using initrd does not preclude having a modular
kernel. In my eyes, where initrd is strong is when it comes to not
having to worry about which IDE/SCSI driver using for the initial boot.
There, having all drivers compiled as modules and crammed into your
initrd image is a winner.
I do not think though that you change IDE controllers that many times in
a kernel lifetime, so that's why I'm saying that the hardware is not
that "dynamic" onto a machine. Other hardware can be used with modules.
IDE/SCSI drivers ? It's a bit more dicey. Well at least for the root
device, it is.
-- Jeff
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