ubuntu on the mac

Linux kernel building guide

"If you have built your main boot drivers as modules (e.g., SCSI host adapter, filesystem, RAID drivers) then you will need to create an initial RAMdisk image. The initrd is a way of sidestepping the chicken and egg problem of booting -- drivers are needed to load the root filesystem but the filesystem cannot be loaded because the drivers are on the filesystem."

from new Kernel HOWTO

So in my HOWTO, one of the things to explore is why it is cool that we can do our thing without an initrd at all. That sentence above gives us more of an idea. The next thing to pursue is how exactly it works without the initrd, and why you would do one over the other in a non-fw world.

posted by Steve Shapero @ 5:02 PM