GRUB question

[Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:06:39 +0800, horseriver said:
>
> > Of course, an initrd on floppy is kind of silly, because you still need to
> > find someplace else to fit the actual kernel - which hasn't fit on a floppy
> > for quite some time.
>
>   Do  we must  need initrd.img  to boot system ?

If your kernel is able to find the root filesystem without any assistance,
based on just the built-in drivers and the root= kernel commandline value,
you don't need an initrd.  However, most distros build basically an
'allmodconfig', which means the required drivers for devices and filesystems
are modules and need to be loaded before the root filesystem can
be mounted.  Also, if you use root-on-LVM or similar, you will need an
initrd to issue the LVM command to start up the disks.

> > Your system should have either 'mkinitrd' or 'dracut' to build the
> > initrd image. Some older systems will have 'mkinitramfs'.
>
>   I know how to make a initrd image file , but put what data into it?

You put in what's needed to get your root filesystem mounted and get
/sbin/init or whatever started.  This will, of course, depend on your exact
hardware, disk, and kernel configuration (my system only needs to do the
LVM thing, as all drivers are built-in.  Your system will probably differ).
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