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authorPaul Eggleton <bluelightning@bluelightning.org>2023-04-22 15:19:49 +1200
committerRichard Purdie <richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org>2023-04-22 10:42:54 +0100
commit5a8e2d41a63b7af94da85aa7a6fd6393582f84c3 (patch)
treee2f51ecd0bcf0f1548f8fe7f5a37a77403b886f6 /documentation/ref-manual/variables.rst
parentf961d5f73e5b3780e9b0c190241c0825000db496 (diff)
downloadpoky-5a8e2d41a63b7af94da85aa7a6fd6393582f84c3.tar.gz
ref-manual: move Initramfs entry from variables to terms
It looks like this was accidentally added to the variable glossary instead of the terms list, so move it to the latter. (From yocto-docs rev: c9829dcae18cd2cb5f008081d841ca995b76b8bf) Signed-off-by: Paul Eggleton <bluelightning@bluelightning.org> Signed-off-by: Richard Purdie <richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'documentation/ref-manual/variables.rst')
-rw-r--r--documentation/ref-manual/variables.rst42
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diff --git a/documentation/ref-manual/variables.rst b/documentation/ref-manual/variables.rst
index 86ffd8912d..bfdf1d1401 100644
--- a/documentation/ref-manual/variables.rst
+++ b/documentation/ref-manual/variables.rst
@@ -3956,48 +3956,6 @@ system and gives an overview of their function and contents.
3956 even if the toolchain's binaries are strippable, there are other files 3956 even if the toolchain's binaries are strippable, there are other files
3957 needed for the build that are not strippable. 3957 needed for the build that are not strippable.
3958 3958
3959 :term:`Initramfs`
3960 An Initial RAM Filesystem (:term:`Initramfs`) is an optionally compressed
3961 :wikipedia:`cpio <Cpio>` archive which is extracted
3962 by the Linux kernel into RAM in a special :wikipedia:`tmpfs <Tmpfs>`
3963 instance, used as the initial root filesystem.
3964
3965 This is a replacement for the legacy init RAM disk ("initrd")
3966 technique, booting on an emulated block device in RAM, but being less
3967 efficient because of the overhead of going through a filesystem and
3968 having to duplicate accessed file contents in the file cache in RAM,
3969 as for any block device.
3970
3971 .. note:
3972
3973 As far as bootloaders are concerned, :term:`Initramfs` and "initrd"
3974 images are still copied to RAM in the same way. That's why most
3975 most bootloaders refer to :term:`Initramfs` images as "initrd"
3976 or "init RAM disk".
3977
3978 This kind of mechanism is typically used for two reasons:
3979
3980 - For booting the same kernel binary on multiple systems requiring
3981 different device drivers. The :term:`Initramfs` image is then customized
3982 for each type of system, to include the specific kernel modules
3983 necessary to access the final root filesystem. This technique
3984 is used on all GNU / Linux distributions for desktops and servers.
3985
3986 - For booting faster. As the root filesystem is extracted into RAM,
3987 accessing the first user-space applications is very fast, compared
3988 to having to initialize a block device, to access multiple blocks
3989 from it, and to go through a filesystem having its own overhead.
3990 For example, this allows to display a splashscreen very early,
3991 and to later take care of mounting the final root filesystem and
3992 loading less time-critical kernel drivers.
3993
3994 This cpio archive can either be loaded to RAM by the bootloader,
3995 or be included in the kernel binary.
3996
3997 For information on creating and using an :term:`Initramfs`, see the
3998 ":ref:`dev-manual/building:building an initial ram filesystem (Initramfs) image`"
3999 section in the Yocto Project Development Tasks Manual.
4000
4001 :term:`INITRAMFS_DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE` 3959 :term:`INITRAMFS_DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE`
4002 Indicates the deploy directory used by :ref:`ref-tasks-bundle_initramfs` 3960 Indicates the deploy directory used by :ref:`ref-tasks-bundle_initramfs`
4003 where the :term:`INITRAMFS_IMAGE` will be fetched from. This variable is 3961 where the :term:`INITRAMFS_IMAGE` will be fetched from. This variable is