From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1R1hjS-0004FC-H6 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:45:43 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id DC09021C11A; Thu, 8 Sep 2011 16:45:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from karnak.local (cpc2-lutn10-2-0-cust603.9-3.cable.virginmedia.com [81.97.90.92]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 80C0B21C104 for ; Thu, 8 Sep 2011 16:44:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by karnak.local (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6DE293003 for ; Thu, 8 Sep 2011 17:44:32 +0100 (BST) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new using ClamAV at karnak.local Received: from karnak.local ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (karnak.local [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id YSkY5geLRmFX for ; Thu, 8 Sep 2011 17:44:30 +0100 (BST) Received: from karnak.local (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by karnak.local (Postfix) with ESMTP id AEDE13002 for ; Thu, 8 Sep 2011 17:44:30 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 17:44:24 +0100 From: David W Noon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot Message-ID: <20110908174424.49e613b3@karnak.local> In-Reply-To: References: <201108191109.34984.michaelkintzios@gmail.com> <20110907050952.GA2588@linux1> <4E66FFFA.2020600@gmail.com> <201109071923.39954.Dan.Johansson@dmj.nu> <20110907235457.691be720@zaphod.digimed.co.uk> <20110908023729.45d1b985@karnak.local> Organization: Luton Operatic Society X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.9 (GTK+ 2.24.4; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=PGP-SHA1; boundary="Sig_/dwe8P5XJj9vCnIwsFoJvXHy"; protocol="application/pgp-signature" X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: c335cd4528439b03c7e44e784cc16921 --Sig_/dwe8P5XJj9vCnIwsFoJvXHy Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, 7 Sep 2011 23:33:35 -0400, Canek Pel=C3=A1ez Vald=C3=A9s wrote abou= t Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot: > On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 9:37 PM, David W Noon > wrote: [snip] > > The more I think about this merge of / and /usr, the dumber I think > > the idea is. =C2=A0As I wrote in an earlier message on this list, the > > initramfs will be many times larger than the kernel itself. > > =C2=A0Indeed, my /boot partition is only 32 MiB, and that will be too > > small to contain all the extra libraries and programs to run the > > initramfs script. >=20 > I don't see any problem with an initramfs larger than the kernel. It > will handle a lot of stuff. But if you don't want to change your /boot > partition, then don't upgrade to new kernels. It is not the kernel that is the problem. It is udev. I expect to switch my simpler systems away from udev to mdev. This loses some functionality of udev, but that isn't needed on the simpler hardware configurations. So mdev could be the simplest solution to the design flaws creeping into udev. A very real problem with a large initramfs/initrd is maintaining the software embedded in the image file. If it contains duplicates of e2fsck, reiserfsck, glibc, libpthread, etc., then these typically need to be upgraded whenever the primary copy is upgraded. The bigger the initramfs becomes, the bigger the maintenance headache it inflicts. > Change happens. I think a more appropriate observation is: change is inevitable, but progress isn't. > >> > Mounting it read-only > >> > seems the only sensible one, and then I think is better to go all > >> > the way and mount / read-only. > >> > >> Putting /etc on a read-only filesystem seems a really bad idea. > > > > To say the least. >=20 > It works, Putting /etc on a read-only mount works?? I take it you don't run any database servers. Every time I add a new database to PostgreSQL it requires (for my needs) at least 1 new tablespace be created with its own mount point. This requires me to add at least 1 line to /etc/fstab so that the new tablespace(s) is/are mounted before PostgreSQL starts after a re-boot. This becomes impossible if /etc is read-only. Similarly, /etc/mtab needs to remain writeable, as symlinking it to /proc/mounts (or /proc/self/mounts) won't always work for programs that parse /etc/mtab. This is because /proc/mounts contains additional mount options that are fairly Linux-specific, whereas /etc/mtab should be vanilla UNIX. > and it makes life easier for upstream. Which are the ones > writting the code. It allows people developing udev scripts to use programs and libraries that are not [currently] on rootfs inside their scripts. If I don't use those scripts, I don't care. --=20 Regards, Dave [RLU #314465] *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* dwnoon@ntlworld.com (David W Noon) *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* --Sig_/dwe8P5XJj9vCnIwsFoJvXHy Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=signature.asc -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk5o8O4ACgkQc9/LpQ70v48xRgCcCDDdxyhlrAAuQBqjSy3YgiuS MUoAn3uiDHEXLLk5rNvFQLGndTdXZ4IJ =Z+/1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Sig_/dwe8P5XJj9vCnIwsFoJvXHy--