Initramfs and TMPFS!

From: robotti
Date: Thu Aug 25 2005 - 10:34:30 EST



>On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 12:35:22AM -0400, robotti@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>I don't know, because tar is probably more widely used and
>consequently people are more familiar with how to use it.
>>As I said before, the cpio format is cleaner/easier to parse in the
>>kernel. Everyone has cpio probably so using tar isn't necessary.

Cpio is perhaps as available as tar, but it's not as used as tar.

Unless tar would be inordinately larger than a cpio implementation
(I can't imagine, but I'm not a coder!) I would prefer it.

>But, that is not as important as having the option of using tmpfs
>as the initramfs.
>>Well, it's not clean that we really want this either. I have some
>>niche needs for it but I suspect most people will never use such an
>>option.

If initramfs replaces the old initrd method it should have something
as a filesystem that's robust and inspires confidence like ext2.

I know generally an initrd is used to load modules and prepare
the installation of a Linux system, so it doesn't require much
in a filesystem.

But, it can also be used to hold and run a complete Linux system,
so a more robust filesystem (tmpfs) is useful.
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