On Thu, 8 Sep 2011 12:56:44 -0400, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote about Re:
[gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot:

> On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 12:44 PM, David W Noon <dwnoon@ntlworld.com>
> wrote:
[snip]
> > 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.
> 
> Maybe. I would not bet on it, but any new technical experiment is
> worth trying, I believe. I will stick with the kernel-blessed option
> of udev, though.

I don't know if the kernel offers any particular blessing to any
hotplug handler.

> > 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.
> 
> Dracut automatizes this. Is a non-problem.

If dracut actually worked ...

[snip]
> mount -o remount,rw /
> do stuff...
> mount -o remount,ro /
> 
> Really, I don't see the problem.

During the "do stuff" phase, /usr is also writeable, which is
undesirable on production systems.  That's the *original* problem with
merging a read-only /usr with /. [We seem to be going in circles with
this one.]

> > 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.
> 
> I really, really don't care about non-Linux systems. But that's me,
> anyone else can use wathever they want. Just don't expect everyone to
> be happy with the lowest common feature set.
> 
> Having said that, which programs do you use that need to parse mtab?

I have about 6 or 7 backup jobs that run during the night and
parse /etc/mtab to see if they need to place a copy of the backup onto
an external medium.  These examine the mount options and don't
understand the non-standard options offered by Linux in /proc/mounts.

[snip]
> Just don't expect the limited resources of the Gentoo devs to be able
> to test and support your special configuration.

:-))

They already don't do that.
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
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dwnoon@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
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