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SubjectRe: 2.1.95 freezes were my fault; kmod patch
>> switch to the new root by doing "exec chroot /mnt /sbin/init" rather
>> than exiting to enable initial ramdisks that can select from more than
>> one possibility for finding the actual root partition (e.g., bringing
>> up a screen that says "boot from CDROM or boot from network?").
>> Please do not remove that functionality.

>Why? Shouldn't this be set by putting the proper values in the
>relevant /proc/sys entries before exiting from linuxrc?

I must admit that the /proc/sys entries were news to me.
However, simply specifying a root and exiting is much more limiting
interface. For example, it is more difficult to have an arrangement
where there are a bunch of diskless workstations that share a common
read-only root, and each mount their own private /etc and /var as
determined by their boot disks.

By the way, as far as I can tell, all of the special stuff for
an initial ramdisk beyond the loading of the image as unnecessary
kernel cruft. There is no need for kludges like change_root() and
these special /proc/sys entries. Using "exec chroot..." is much more
straightforward, portable to other unix variants, and useful for
similar situations that do not necessarily even involve a ramdisk,
such as restarting the system on a new root after an install (and I
want kmod to follow under these circumstances too).

If there is interest, I would be happy to produce a patch to
delete all of the unnecessary kernel code and adjust
Documentation/initrd.txt to talk about "exec chroot /mnt /sbin/init"
as the way from an initial ramdisk to exit.

Adam J. Richter __ ______________ 4880 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 205
adam@yggdrasil.com \ / San Jose, California 95129-1034
+1 408 261-6630 | g g d r a s i l United States of America
fax +1 408 261-6631 "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."

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