Grokking miniroot.kmod etc.

Hi Andy,

I'm trying to understand how the new world order works WRT loading a 
ramdisk from the boot loader, in order to update g4u.

My understanding of the previous system is:
  * we make a ramdisk image (ramdisk.fs) e.g. from
    src/distrib/i386/ramdisks
  * we make a kernel that has options MEMORY_DISK_HOOKS and
    MEMORY_DISK_IS_ROOT (and possibly MEMORY_DISK_ROOT_SIZE)
  * we put the ramdisk image into the kernel with mdsetimage,
    and get a kernel that has the ramdisk
  * we then use the regular boot loader to load the kernel and
    use the ramdisk image as root filesystem

Now with the new world order, I see a number of bits that I can't fit 
together:
  * we build a ramdisk image from e.g. src/distrib/i386/ramdisks as
    before
  * There's src/sys/modules/miniroot which builds/installs e.g.
    /stand/i386/4.99.72/modules/miniroot/miniroot.kmod, but it seems
    unrelated to the ramdisk image. Is that correct? What's this
    needed for, at all?
  * for the kernel, I guess the MEMORY_DISK_HOOKS kernel option is still
    needed, but instead of MEMORY_DISK_IS_ROOT and esp.
    MEMORY_DISK_ROOT_SIZE, MEMORY_DISK_DYNAMIC is needed. Does that make
    sense?
  * Now, how to fit things together? Where does the ramdisk image come
    into play?
  * How to tell the bootloader to load the ramdisk after the kernel?
    My guess this is done via boot.cfg - is there an example?
    What is the /ramdisk.kmod mentioned in boot.cfg.4, is it the
    ramdiskbin.fs? Where exactly is this put?

Thanks!


  - Hubert