[wplug] What is initrd and why is it necessary

[Paul Cantalupo]

In response to my email thread "kernel not loading after partitioning
hard drive", Donald wrote:

>>>snip
        So the question for Paul is - do you have a valid initrd for
each
kernel, and does lilo.conf point to it?  If all looks OK - re-run lilo
and
you should be golden.

To get an initrd is something like:
mkinitrd -v -f --ifneeded <initrdimage-name>
<kernel-version-to-build-against>
        -this assumes that /etc/modules.conf has any required modules /
aliases listed in it, otherwise you'll need to specify '--preload
<module>'
in the above syntax

(ex: mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.2.5-15.img 2.2.5-15)  and of course
lilo.conf
must reflect this image for this kernel.  the --ifneeded is nice because
it
will not build unnecessary initrd's - usually SCSI / exotic storage are
the
only reason for initrd's on PeeCees
>>>snip

I have never used initrd nor does initrd appear in my lilo.conf (see
below). So, on my system, it seems that I can do without it. Is this
something specific to different Linux distros? I am using Slackware 8.

Thanks,

Paul




>>Contents of my lilo.conf file

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
lba32 # Allow booting past 1024th cylinder with a recent BIOS
boot = /dev/hda
prompt
delay = 50
timeout = 100
change-rules
reset
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
vga = 791
# End LILO global section

# DOS bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hda1
label = windows
table = /dev/hda
# DOS bootable partition config ends

# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /vmlinuz_orig
root = /dev/hda2
label = working
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for
checking

image = /vmlinuz_7.26.02
root = /dev/hda2
label = ntfs_7.26.02
append="hdc=ide-scsi max_scsi_luns=1"
read-only

# Linux bootable partition config ends