Who maintains initramfs-tools?

[Paul Albrecht]

On Thu, 2008-07-24 at 11:30 -0400, Ben Collins wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-07-24 at 09:56 -0500, Paul Albrecht wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-07-22 at 10:13 -0400, Ben Collins wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2008-07-22 at 09:08 -0500, Paul Albrecht wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 2008-07-22 at 07:31 -0600, Tim Gardner wrote: 
> > > > > Paul Albrecht wrote:
> > > > > > Hi,
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Who maintains the initramfs-tools package?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > >From the changelog I see 5 different people for the last 5 uploads. What
> > > > > do you need?
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > I hacked initramfs-tools so I could run ubuntu on a 2 gigabyte partition
> > > > and I was wondering whether it was worthwhile pushing the changes
> > > > upstream.
> > > > 
> > > > What I do specifically is first install ubuntu on a 8 gigabyte flash
> > > > disk. Then I further configure the system the way I want and squash the
> > > > root file system. Finally, I write the squashed root file system to a 2
> > > > gigabyte flash disk.
> > > > 
> > > > With my hack to initramfs-tools, which simply union mounts the squashed
> > > > root with a cow layer, I get a usable desktop on a 2 gigabyte partition.
> > > 
> > > This sounds a lot like our livecd, and even more like the work we've
> > > done for the classmate PC. I'd compare what you've done with that and
> > > see if there is anything common.
> > > 
> > 
> > Rereading your response I'm not sure I understood you. Are you saying
> > you think I should look at what you did for the classmate PC? How would
> > I do that?
> > 
> > The reason I posted here was because I'd like to get the code that
> > handles loop file systems tweaked a bit so I don't have to pin the
> > initramfs-package.
> 
> I didn't do the classmate PC stuff. If you talk to ogra on Freenode IRC,
> he can tell you where his code is. All I'm saying is that there's at
> least three different implementations, and we need to settle on one :)
> 
> Last thing I want to do is have three different ways for this to be done
> in initramfs-tools.
> 

Why do you think you need three different implementations? It doesn't
matter how liveCDs or PC classmate are handled. It's really irrelevant. 

I'm simply suggesting a minor enhancement to the way loop file systems
are handled for the case of a local mount. This isn't much more than
tweak to code that handles the init loop option which is at the end of
mountroot routine in local/scripts.

Of course, I can fix up the initrd to work the way I want, but then I
have to pin the package which I'd rather avoid because then I can't pick
up updates to the package.

Didn't think there would be any objection because the change is small,
the risk of regression is negligible, and the change is possibly useful
to others.

-- 
Paul Albrecht