From 78ad9ceb561a15a27195567d7d7c2c9ec9347e73 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeremy Katz Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:24:59 -0500 Subject: Update the README and add some docs for TODO and HACKING --- README | 29 ++++++++++++++++++++++++----- 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) (limited to 'README') diff --git a/README b/README index f2d7b00..3d14c2f 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -1,11 +1,30 @@ -This is the simple skeleton of a new initrd infrastructure. +This is the simple skeleton of a new initramfs infrastructure. Information about our goals and aims can be found at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Initrdrewrite -One of the biggest goals is that we're using common pieces from the -system as much as possible and we also want to do this in a way that -can eventually get some cross-distro buy-in. But for now, it's a -playground to see what of our ideas are actually feasible. +Unlike existing initramfs's, this is an attempt at having as little as +possible hard-coded into the initramfs as possible. The initramfs has +(basically) one purpose in life -- getting the rootfs mounted so that +we can transition to the real rootfs. This is all driven off of +device availability. Therefore, instead of scripts hard-coded to do +various things, we depend on udev to create device nodes for us and +then when we have the rootfs's device node, we mount and carry on. +This helps to keep the time required in the initramfs as little as +possible so that things like a 5 second boot aren't made impossible as +a result of the very existence of an initramfs. It's likely that +we'll grow some hooks for running arbitrary commands in the flow of +the script, but it's worth trying to resist the urge as much as we can +as hooks are guaranteed to be the path to slow-down. + +Also, there is an attempt to keep things as distribution-agnostic as +possible. Every distribution has their own tool here and it's not +something which is really interesting to have separate across them. +So contributions to help decrease the distro-dependencies are welcome. + +The git tree can be found at +git://fedorapeople.org/~katzj/new-initrd.git for now. See the TODO +file for things which still need to be done and HACKING for some +instructions on how to get started Licensed under the GPLv2 -- cgit v1.2.3