Re: [PATCH] linux-initrd: Introduce way to add more packages to initrd.

[Tomáš Čech]

On Mon, Aug 01, 2016 at 06:09:12PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Tomáš Čech <address@hidden> skribis:
>
> > Ping after week - is there interest in this patch?
>
> I didn’t comment on the patch specifically because I thought my reply
> might make you change your mind.  ;-)
>
>  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-07/msg01241.html

Thanks for that, I'm still trying to digest that bite. I'm sorry for
being a bit slow on Guile.

> All the packages used by the initrd are automatically part of the
> initrd.  The proposed patch would allow people to add unused packages to
> the initrd.

It is for the packages which you may want to use interactivelly in
case of failure or for some extra initrd hacking you may not want/be
able to write in Guile.

Features like
- extra authentication
- full disk encryption
- root on NFS
- LVM :)
- ...

when kernel+initrd is booted from another source.

> Could you explain how/when this would be used?  Maybe as commands for
> use by Bournish when it’s used as a rescue shell?

I agree that it is more for debugging and to balance my inability to
express it in Guile but it lowers the barrier a bit.

Bournish is too young to rely on it. I miss pipes, accessing files in
different directories or `ls' with wildcards. I can put in minimal
static busybox which is more than sufficient for rescue, problem
analysis or even data recovery.

I like the idea of Bournish but I'd rather have an alternative
until it is more capable.

And yes, it could be also used from Bournish in interactive session as
a command.

S_W

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