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Linux Kernel Programming - Second Edition

You're reading from Linux Kernel Programming - Second Edition

Product type Book

Published in Feb 2024

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781803232225

Pages 826 pages

Edition 2nd Edition

Languages

Concepts

System Administration

Author (1):

Kaiwan N. Billimoria

Table of Contents (16) Chapters

Preface

1. Linux Kernel Programming – A Quick Introduction

2. Building the 6.x Linux Kernel from Source – Part 1

3. Building the 6.x Linux Kernel from Source – Part 2

4. Writing Your First Kernel Module – Part 1

5. Writing Your First Kernel Module – Part 2

6. Kernel Internals Essentials – Processes and Threads

7. Memory Management Internals – Essentials

8. Kernel Memory Allocation for Module Authors – Part 1

9. Kernel Memory Allocation for Module Authors – Part 2

10. The CPU Scheduler – Part 1

11. The CPU Scheduler – Part 2

12. Kernel Synchronization – Part 1

13. Kernel Synchronization – Part 2

14. Other Books You May Enjoy

15. Index

Understanding the initramfs framework

A bit of a mystery remains! What exactly is this initramfs (initial RAM filesystem) or initrd (initial RAM disk) image for? Why is it there?

Firstly, using this feature is a choice – the kernel config directive is called CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD. It’s set to y and hence on by default. In brief, for systems that do not know in advance certain things such as the boot disk host adapter or controller type (SCSI, RAID, and so on), the exact filesystem type that the root filesystem is formatted as (is it ext2, ext4, btrfs, f2fs, or something else?), or for those systems where these functionalities are always built as kernel modules, we require the initramfs capability. Exactly why will become clear in a moment. Also, as mentioned earlier, initrd is now considered an older term. Nowadays, we more often use the term initramfs in its place.

But what exactly is the difference between the older initrd and newer initramfs? The key difference...

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Authors (1)

Kaiwan N. Billimoria

Kaiwan N. Billimoria taught himself BASIC programming on his dad's IBM PC back in 1983. He was programming in C and Assembly on DOS until he discovered the joys of Unix, and by around 1997, Linux! Kaiwan has worked on many aspects of the Linux system programming stack, including Bash scripting, system programming in C, kernel internals, device drivers, and embedded Linux work. He has actively worked on several commercial/FOSS projects. His contributions include drivers to the mainline Linux OS and many smaller projects hosted on GitHub. His Linux passion feeds well into his passion for teaching these topics to engineers, which he has done for well over two decades now. He's also the author of Hands-On System Programming with Linux, Linux Kernel Programming (and its Part 2 book) and Linux Kernel Debugging. It doesn't hurt that he is a recreational ultrarunner too.

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