[Fedora-livecd-list] RFC- mayflower flexibility enhancements

[Jeremy Katz]

On Mon, 2007-08-13 at 12:03 -0500, Douglas McClendon wrote:
> Jeremy Katz wrote:
> > On Sun, 2007-08-12 at 23:13 -0500, Douglas McClendon wrote:
> >> I have a few changes I'd like to request to mayflower.  I'd like to get 
> >> some feedback before actually laying down the effort of producing patches.
> > 
> > So from a big high-level point of view, I'd really rather _not_ add lots
> > more that people depend on from mayflower.  Having two different
> > codebases to handle the initramfs (mayflower + mkinitrd) is incredibly
> > painful for having to adapt both for changes in the OS, etc.  
> 
> I agree that it would be cool if mayflower got absorbed into mkinitrd 
> (or vice versa).  But that seems a litte far off right now, wheras the 
> changes I presented were all very small, and only served to structure 
> mayflower in a better way, which I imagine would make it's absorbtion 
> into mkinitrd easier, not harder.  I.e.

It's actually not that much work.  The first step (switching to using
bash for the initramfs so that you don't have to implement conditionals
in nash) is actually already done and working -- see the bash-branch of
mkinitrd.  I just haven't had time to then get the livecd bits using
that.  I had hoped to for F8, but time is rapidly running out and that's
going to be lower on my "caring" list.

And note, I'm not really against the changes, I just breathe a heavy
sigh every time something else is done in mayflower rather than spending
the time on fixing the whole "two initrd" infrastructures thing :/

> >> #3 - optional program, sort of like existing shell cmdline arg
> >>
> >> Have a cmdline argument of program= and eprogram= which would cause the 
> >> specified program to be executed.  program= would happen right after the 
> >> current shell, and eprogram would happen right after the current eshell.
> > 
> > Why not just use init= ?  Other than the fact that doing so is currently
> > broken with mayflower (... see above comments about two implementations
> > of the same thing :-)
> 
> The reason is that I very much like all the mayflower generated init 
> stuff that happens up to the point of the existing shell escape.  I.e. 
> setting up an environment where bash can run and I can see my devices. 
> By specifying my own init, I'd basically be duplicating the mayflower 
> init generation code, except with my program= escape point, at which 
> point...  hey, I'm back where this proposal started.

init= doesn't replace the initramfs's init -- it's what is supposed to
be run after you've got the real system.  eg, init=/bin/bash to just get
dropped to a shell rather than running /sbin/init.  But yeah, after a
quick try, something about it is busted with mayflower.  Try it on a
"normal" system, though, to get the effect that's intended

Jeremy