[Mageia-dev] [changelog] [RPM] cauldron core/release dracut-015-3.mga2

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and Charles A Edwards at 16/02/12 04:53 did gyre and gimble:
> On Thu, 16 Feb 2012 01:05:15 +0100 (CET)
> colin <buildsystem-daemon at mageia.org> wrote:
> 
>>   + tmb <tmb>
>>     - add info in README.urpmi that systemd users must use dracut
> 
> What does this mean?
> 
> Currently I am booting with systemd-sysvinit and using mkinitrd.
> Is it going to now magically/tragically stop working?

In certain circumstances, yes. If you have dm or raid or anything
similar, mkinitrd simply won't work as systemd aims to be very much
focused on hotplug, not on probing and poking as traditional systems
used to work. This means that metadata about disks and drives must be
available via udev. In the old mkinitrd approach, udev is not used and
thus when lvm and friends are activated inside the initrd, the metadata
does not make it through to udev and thus systemd cannot "see" various
partitions and thus cannot mount filesystems etc.

Using dracut means udev is in the initrd and metadata is available.

This is why a systemd boot requires a dracut initrd. I'm not prepared to
support any other combination as it just does not make sense.

Can I ask why you are using mkinitrd anyway? What problem are you having
with dracut? I need to make sure I find a way to fix any problems you
have (obviously some problems with latest dracut are known and I'm
working on fixes, just want to make sure I don't miss your issues)

Col


-- 

Colin Guthrie
colin(at)mageia.org
http://colin.guthr.ie/

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