From: "Boyd Stephen Smith Jr." <bss03@volumehost.net>
To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] ramfs - is it necessary ???
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:16:35 -0600 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <200702211716.46842.bss03@volumehost.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <45DCCAED.40709@xvalheru.org>
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On Wednesday 21 February 2007, pat <pat@xvalheru.org> wrote
about '[gentoo-user] ramfs - is it necessary ???':
> And if it is necessary where I can find good documentation
> (samples, explanation, etc.).
Pretty much all of the documenation on "early userspace" is in the kernel
tree. You might even want to emerge the kernel with the 'doc' use flag,
to get full (HTML?) documentation, although some of it is in simple plain
text (rather than docbook) and available w/o that flag.
> And next question is: hat is difference between ramfs and initrd ??? Is
> it the same thing or not ... ???
initrd is the old way. A compressed (usually ext2) filesystem used to load
kernel modules, or otherwise initialize things before mounting the root
filesystem.
initramfs is the new way. A compressed series of cpio archives (with some
special treatment) for the same purpose.
Both use ram-backed block devices. initrd doesn't need ramfs or tmpfs. I
think an initramfs can use either, but it might require ramfs. An
initramfs can be compiled into the kernel, either can be a separate file
loaded by grub/lilo/xen.
ramfs is a fixed-size ram-backed file system. tmpfs is a newer, better way
to do this. It has a maximum size (which can be changed by a remount) but
will only allocate enough ram to hold what is currently placed on the
filesystem.
--
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2007-02-21 23:23 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 23+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2007-02-21 22:42 [gentoo-user] ramfs - is it necessary ??? pat
2007-02-21 23:16 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. [this message]
2007-02-22 0:08 ` pat
2007-02-22 0:25 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
2007-02-22 0:41 ` pat
2007-02-22 10:07 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
2007-02-22 7:45 ` Alan McKinnon
2007-02-22 10:08 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
2007-02-22 10:56 ` Dirk Heinrichs
2007-02-22 11:05 ` Alan McKinnon
2007-02-22 18:12 ` Neil Bothwick
2007-02-23 7:11 ` Dirk Heinrichs
2007-02-23 9:36 ` Neil Bothwick
2007-02-22 0:13 ` Hemmann, Volker Armin
2007-02-22 0:29 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
2007-02-22 0:39 ` pat
2007-02-22 1:50 ` Hemmann, Volker Armin
2007-02-22 10:08 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
[not found] ` <200702220958.49233.alan@linuxholdings.co.za>
2007-02-22 10:08 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
2007-02-22 7:50 ` Alan McKinnon
2007-02-22 8:14 ` Neil Bothwick
[not found] ` <200702221108.31090.alan@linuxholdings.co.za>
2007-02-22 9:18 ` pat
[not found] ` <200702220411.04512.bss03@volumehost.net>
2007-02-22 12:02 ` pat
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