I've looked through all the docs I can find on this, but there doesn't seem to be much available. Hopefully some of you can help answer my questions. My distribution includes a vmlinuz kernel. Do I need to compile a custom bzimage kernel or will the stock kernel suffice?
I am using lvm on a dmcrypted disk for the root filesystem. Presumably these binaries and helper scripts will be needed in the initrd. So far the only help I've seen on creating the initrd for the payload is Ron's email to this list where he says
"Your best bet is to do the standard trivial initramfs with a simple program: main(){printf("hi\n"); while (1);} Let's pretend it's called mymain.c cc -o mymain -static mymain.c put that in your prototype root file system with the name init. make sure you create /dev/console. Then bundle it all up with cpio and you've got an initramfs"
That seems to describe more of a shim than a true initrd. Also he mentions initramfs whereas menuconfig asks for initrd. Which is correct? I don't see any reference to filesystem drivers in Ron's email, but surely they are required to mount the root. I'm guessing this is a test example that is not intended to boot.
Can anyone provide help or instructions on an actual bootable initrd/initramfs? Can a pointer to the initramfs in /boot be used? What kind of size will it be? My rom is limited to 8Mb and the kernel is over 5Mb.
Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email.