slackware-current/README.initrd
Patrick J Volkerding 7dba81f6b7 Wed Jul 25 03:50:17 UTC 2018
a/kernel-generic-4.14.57-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
a/kernel-huge-4.14.57-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
a/kernel-modules-4.14.57-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
a/shadow-4.2.1-x86_64-5.txz:  Rebuilt.
  adduser: added "input" to additional user groups. Thanks to stormtracknole.
a/sysvinit-scripts-2.1-noarch-14.txz:  Rebuilt.
  Handle remote (NFS, etc.) mounts with spaces in the name. Thanks to upnort.
d/kernel-headers-4.14.57-x86-1.txz:  Upgraded.
d/parallel-20180722-noarch-1.txz:  Upgraded.
d/rust-1.27.2-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
d/subversion-1.10.2-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
k/kernel-source-4.14.57-noarch-1.txz:  Upgraded.
l/libgphoto2-2.5.19-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
l/libzip-1.5.1-x86_64-4.txz:  Rebuilt.
  Make sure that the API-CHANGES file is included in the package documentation.
x/xf86-video-r128-6.11.0-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
x/xorg-server-1.20.0-x86_64-3.txz:  Rebuilt.
  Applied some patches that other distributions have been using for a while:
  Fix glamor so that the return value from glamor_fds_from_pixmap matches
  what's expected (thanks to Darth Vader for pointing out these patches).
  Autobind secondary GPUs to the master as output sink / offload source. This
  seems like a beneficial patch until/unless DEs start to handle this.
  For nvidia cards, if they are GeForce 8 or newer use the modesetting driver
  by default. Seems to be recommmended by upstream where they indicate that
  fixes going into nouveau are primarily to target older cards for legacy
  support and that the modesetting ddx is preferable for newer ones:
    https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94844
x/xorg-server-xephyr-1.20.0-x86_64-3.txz:  Rebuilt.
x/xorg-server-xnest-1.20.0-x86_64-3.txz:  Rebuilt.
x/xorg-server-xvfb-1.20.0-x86_64-3.txz:  Rebuilt.
isolinux/initrd.img:  Rebuilt.
  Use ter-v14v.psf.gz as the consolefont. It supports more character sets, and
  the larger font was causing wraparound on UEFI (at least on bare metal here).
kernels/*:  Upgraded.
usb-and-pxe-installers/usbboot.img:  Rebuilt.
2018-07-25 13:47:10 +02:00

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Slackware initrd mini HOWTO
by Patrick Volkerding, volkerdi@slackware.com
Wed Jul 25 03:30:04 UTC 2018
This document describes how to create and install an initrd, which may be
required to use the 4.x kernel. Also see "man mkinitrd".
1. What is an initrd?
2. Why to I need an initrd?
3. How do I build the initrd?
4. Now that I've built an initrd, how do I use it?
1. What is an initrd?
Initrd stands for "initial ramdisk". An initial ramdisk is a very small
Linux filesystem that is loaded into RAM and mounted as the kernel boots,
and before the main root filesystem is mounted.
2. Why do I need an initrd?
The usual reason to use an initrd is because you need to load kernel
modules before mounting the root partition. Usually these modules are
required to support the filesystem used by the root partition (ext3, ext4,
btrfs, xfs), or perhaps the controller that the hard drive is attached
to (SCSI, RAID, etc). Essentially, there are so many different options
available in modern Linux kernels that it isn't practical to try to ship
many different kernels to try to cover everyone's needs. It's a lot more
flexible to ship a generic kernel and a set of kernel modules for it.
3. How do I build the initrd?
The easiest way to make the initrd is to use the mkinitrd script included
in Slackware's mkinitrd package. We'll walk through the process of
upgrading to the generic 4.14.57 Linux kernel using the packages
found in Slackware's slackware/a/ directory.
First, make sure the kernel, kernel modules, and mkinitrd package are
installed (the current version numbers might be a little different, so
this is just an example):
installpkg kernel-generic-4.14.57-x86_64-1.txz
installpkg kernel-modules-4.14.57-x86_64-1.txz
installpkg mkinitrd-1.4.11-x86_64-8.txz
Change into the /boot directory:
cd /boot
Now you'll want to run "mkinitrd". I'm using ext4 for my root filesystem,
and since the disk controller requires no special support the ext4 module
will be the only one I need to load:
mkinitrd -c -k 4.14.57 -m ext4
This should do two things. First, it will create a directory
/boot/initrd-tree containing the initrd's filesystem. Then it will
create an initrd (/boot/initrd.gz) from this tree. If you wanted to,
you could make some additional changes in /boot/initrd-tree/ and
then run mkinitrd again without options to rebuild the image. That's
optional, though, and only advanced users will need to think about that.
Here's another example: Build an initrd image using Linux 4.14.57
kernel modules for a system with an ext4 root partition on /dev/sdb3:
mkinitrd -c -k 4.14.57 -m ext4 -f ext4 -r /dev/sdb3
4. Now that I've built an initrd, how do I use it?
Now that you've got an initrd (/boot/initrd.gz), you'll want to load
it along with the kernel at boot time. If you use LILO for your boot
loader you'll need to edit /etc/lilo.conf and add a line to load the
initrd. Here's an example section of lilo.conf showing how this is
done:
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz-generic
initrd = /boot/initrd.gz
root = /dev/sda6
label = Slackware
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
The initrd is loaded by the "initrd = /boot/initrd.gz" line.
Just add the line right below the line for the kernel image you use.
Save the file, and then run LILO again ('lilo' at the command line).
You'll need to run lilo every time you edit lilo.conf or rebuild the
initrd.
Other bootloaders such as syslinux also support the use of an initrd.
See the documentation for those programs for details on using an
initrd with them.
---------
Have fun!