> I always wondered why the initial disk needs to be a _RAM_ disk?
Well, if the (just booted) kernel has access to _some_ kind of mass
storage, then initrd could be changed to use that. But then, you wouldn't
need initrd atall to mount a root fs. Initrd was invented for booting
kernels that do _not_ have the appropriate driver for accessing the root
fs, hence loading it later via insmod.
You should not mix the usage of 'initrd' with that of '/linuxrc', though
they currently depend on each other. And yes, in principal '/linuxrc'
needs not to reside on a RAM disk _if_ you have some other kind of storage
accessable ( you need to change kernel though ).
Hans
<lermen@fgan.de>