Re: Re: Minimal snapshots for cooker available.

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Jeremiah Summers <[email protected]>wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Matthew Dawkins <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 11:48 AM, Per Øyvind Karlsen
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >> Den 19:14 20. januar 2012 skrev Matthew Dawkins <[email protected]>
> >> følgende:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 1:11 PM, Franck Bui <[email protected]>
> >> > wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Matthew Dawkins <[email protected]> writes:
> >> >>
> >> >> [...]
> >> >>
> >> >> >
> >> >> > What kmod is that? i have been checking the kernels ever since you
> >> >> > mentioned it to me.
> >> >>
> >> >> I think I've already described how to get/use it somewhere else...
> >> >>
> >> >> > My main problem ATM are building solid initrd imgs and the unioning
> >> >> > fs
> >> >> > needed in the livecd. Currently the kernels are requiring mkinitrd
> >> >> > and
> >> >> > not dracut.
> >> >>
> >> >> If you can detail further maybe I could have a look and help.
> >> >>
> >> >> > We could drastically clean up what is needed in the initrd if we
> >> >> > started migrating to dracut and a static busybox.
> >> >>
> >> >> Perhaps, but my goal was not to have the smallest image, but a
> snapshot
> >> >> of current cooker ready to use in various context.
> >> >>
> >> >> --
> >> >>                Franck
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Well, maybe we can address one issue at a time.
> >> Aren't you doing the exact opposite here..? ;p
> >
> > :P
> >>
> >> >
> >> > What would it take to get dracut to replace mkinitd?
> >> It's already replaced mkinitrd since a while ago (although for people
> >> upgrading and
> >> already using mkinitrd, this stayed as default).
> >
> > The kernels afaik from checking still require mkinitrd
> > If dracut is working and there are no problems booting with initramfs
> > images, then way not finally switch?
> >>
> >> > And I think dracut should prolly prefer the static busybox over the
> >> > uclibc
> >> > compile busybox.
> >> dracut doesn't use busybox at all currently.
> >>
> >> The statically linked busybox package is anyways linked against
> >> uClibc, and as you'd also
> >> want to bundle ie. plymouth and other stuff that busybox doesn't
> >> provide, it would be preferred
> >> to use binaries dynamically linked against uClibc to save space.
> >>
> >> It's anyways not really a topic worth much discussion before someone
> >> does the job of adding
> >> support for busybox to dracut though (which would be nice as we then
> >> could reduce initrd size
> >> from > 32MB all the way down to 1 MB)..
> >
> > dracut just produced a ~7MB size initramfs for me...
> > but yes busybox removes the need for udev, modprobe and most of the libs
> > afaik
> >>
> >>
> >> And it's rather off-topic for this thread.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Regards,
> >> Per Øyvind
> >
> >
>
> The init for a Live System should role is to find the root drive and
> mount it then do the swap. Dracut doesn't even need to be used for
> this, I think this what Matt is talking about. He might be a little
> confused over uClibc, which fedora and various of distributions use to
> statically build busybox. Busybox however space wise seems to be a
> interesting solution rather then pulling in various binaries and
> needed libs from the system as I assume dracut does. Dracut works well
> for a mkinitrd replacement outside of live environments but at least
> in my experience is not efficient enough just yet to replace a
> generated init with something like an all in one solution like
> busybox, even if you choose not to use busybox's mdev for udev.
>

Well I finally figured out where the hidden kmod(overlayfs) file is..
In the git repo... not even a package in cooker...
Franck you need to push that to cooker if you want people to use it.

I've done a layout of what needs to be in the initrd's for now.
I would like to see if switching to busybox is feasible and reduce the size
even more.