Re: [PATCH] documentation: Documentation/initrd.txt

[Bodo Eggert]

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Tom Horsley wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 19:08 +0200, Bodo Eggert wrote:

> > > I spent a long time the other day trying to examine an initrd
> > > image on a fedora core 5 system because the initrd.txt file
> > > is apparently obsolete. Here is a patch which I hope
> > > will reduce future confusion for others.
> > 
> > Your documentation is technically wrong, and there is a better
> > explanation:
> 
> I find it easy to believe my document is wrong, but looking at
> the Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt file
> would never have led me to believe that the initrd.img file
> was related in any way. The ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt
> file describes the the archive as being built into the
> kernel, so it needs updating too I guess (and fedora
> should change the name of the initrd files to be
> initramfs files so I'll look for documentation in the right
> place :-).

Yes.

Signed-Off-By: Bodo Eggert <7eggert@xxxxxx>

--- 2.6.17/Documentation/initrd.txt.ori	2006-07-27 18:49:25.000000000 +0200
+++ 2.6.17/Documentation/initrd.txt	2006-07-27 18:58:19.000000000 +0200
@@ -15,6 +15,9 @@ initrd is mainly designed to allow syste
 where the kernel comes up with a minimum set of compiled-in drivers, and
 where additional modules are loaded from initrd.
 
+initrd has recently been obsoleted by initramfs, which is described in
+Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt.
+
 This document gives a brief overview of the use of initrd. A more detailed
 discussion of the boot process can be found in [1].
 
--- 2.6.17/Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt.ori	2006-07-27 23:05:44.000000000 +0200
+++ 2.6.17/Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt	2006-07-27 23:06:26.000000000 +0200
@@ -96,6 +96,10 @@ All this differs from the old initrd in 
     into the linux kernel image.  (The directory linux-*/usr is devoted to
     generating this archive during the build.)
     
+    However, if you use one or more compressed cpio archives (concatenated) 
+    instead of an initrd image, they will be unpacked, too, possibly
+    replacing existing files.
+
   - The old initrd file was a gzipped filesystem image (in some file format,
     such as ext2, that had to be built into the kernel), while the new
     initramfs archive is a gzipped cpio archive (like tar only simpler,
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