5 sec boot

[david at lang.hm]

On Fri, 3 Oct 2008, Mitch Bradley wrote:

> david at lang.hm wrote:
>> On Fri, 3 Oct 2008, Mitch Bradley wrote:
>> 
>>> ...
>> 
>> since the XO hardware is fixed, why would you ship a kernel that used 
>> modules for any of the XO hardware? especially for anything that it needs 
>> at boot time?
>
> By and large, the required drivers are not modules.  It's possible that we 
> might have screwed up in some cases, but I think we've done the right thing 
> for the most part.
>
> The built-in wireless device is on USB.

but even USB drivers can be built-in, so there's no need to use any 
modules for anything that you will always have (possible exception, 
disabling the wireless for flying)

>> if you don't need modules to boot, why do you need initrd? you should be 
>> able to just do everything from the main partition.
>
> Our activation security system is in an initrd so that the firmware can check 
> its signature before booting it.  The whole security thing adds a bunch of 
> interesting wrinkles.

ouch. try to make the initrd do as little as possible.

>> 
>> neither of these require any changes to the Fedora stuff (I do this on 
>> every system that I run, have done so with many different distros, and 
>> never run into problems)
>> 
>> remember that you can still have modules for USB devices, but not need to 
>> use any of them at boot time (if there are no USB devices plugged in)
>
> As mentioned, our wireless module is on an internal USB port.  To what extent 
> does that complicate the situation?

it shouldn't.

David Lang