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Why use initramfs Linux?
The only purpose of an initramfs is to mount the root filesystem. The initramfs is a complete set of directories that you would find on a normal root filesystem. It is bundled into a single cpio archive and compressed with one of several compression algorithms. In this situation, an initramfs is rarely needed.
Do I need initrd?
5 Answers. initrd/initramfs is optional and not a requirement. bzImage is the pure kernel image and can be booted directly by the bootloader.
What is the difference between initrd and initramfs in Linux?
Both initrd and ramfs are zipped at compile time, but the difference is, initrd is a block device unpacked to be mounted by the kernel at booting, while ramfs is unpacked via cpio into memory.
What’s the difference between initrd and initramfs?
I will always refer to the above file as the “initrd” file since, in my opinion, the “initramfs” early root file system is something quite different. Quite simply, the “initramfs” (initial RAM file system) is what I call an even earlier potential root file system that you can build into the kernel image itself.
What’s the purpose of the initramfs file system?
The only purpose of an initramfs is to mount the root filesystem. The initramfs is a complete set of directories that you would find on a normal root filesystem. It is bundled into a single cpio archive and compressed with one of several compression algorithms.
Do you need initramfs for the Linux kernel?
In some cases the initramfs can be built into the same file as the kernel but this is not always the case. (a) seems to state pretty clearly that in some cases initramfs is not necessary.
What are the objects in the initrd file?
The above should be self-explanatory — your default initramfs will contain all of two objects — a /root directory and a /dev/console special device file. That’s not terribly exciting, which means that if you don’t design a usable initramfs for your kernel, you’d better have a practical initrd file to pick up the slack.