[arch-general] Removing initrd (For use with GRUB2, LVM, GPT)

[C Anthony Risinger]

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 10:29 PM, Jonathan Vasquez
<jvasquez1011 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Simplicity and minimalism would be what motivates me the most. If I
> don't need an initramfs to get my system boot up, why have one? I know
> the benefits that initramfs provides, but I don't need any of them.
> All I need my computer to do is start, find the kernel, boot my comp
> to the terminal or X11 (depending on my setup).

well, i hear ya, but i'd argue you already *have* the minimalist setup
... life is about balance friend :-)  i'm not sure too many would
agree (my time is more important that pedantic minimalism) hence
support may be hard to come by.  although, this paragraph is backed by
little more than imaginary statistics and [possibly misguided]
intuition.

> My set up atm that lets me have GPT, GRUB2, LVM, all without needing
> initramfs, and future proofs me the need to move the physical
> partitions in the drive (not the logical ones inside the lvm) is:
>
> /dev/sda1 BIOS Boot Partition    32M
> /dev/sda2 /boot   ext2    100M
> /dev/sda3 /         ext4    2G
> /dev/sda4  Linux LVM (name: arch)

... because you desire to drop the initramfs, you've lost the ability
to manage / with LVM2, and that sux.  2GiB *might* be enough, never
was nearly enough for me (though, i reject the idea of oodles of
partitions) ... but what if it's not?  by generating a teeny 4Mib
file, you're / moves to LVM2, and you never have to rebuild the kern
if you change FS, change hardware, change <insert here> ... dunno,
nice trade off to me ... won't say anything further about it ;-)

> Created in a (read most, write last order .. if it matters inside LVM)
> /dev/arch/swap   2G
> /dev/arch/usr      10G
> /dev/arch/tmp     10G
> /dev/arch/opt      5G
> /dev/arch/var      10G
> /dev/arch/home  500G

btw, if swap is on LVM2, you'll want to flag it contiguous (-Cy on
`lvcreate`) if you didn't already.  also, not sure if you need it, but
hibernation will be impossible without initramfs if swap is on LVM2.
lastly, be aware that a separate `/usr` is rapidly degrading into a
next-to-unsupported/awkwardly-handled configuration ... while a lack
of initramfs avoids the need to mount it pre-root, you may still have
issues during early boot ... especially since soon, if not now, Arch
initscripts will fully expect `/usr` to be available before pid 1 (Tom
or someone else would need to confirm this).

-- 

C Anthony