Documentation > Building an initrd

no initramfs?

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black-clover:
I have read the Nutyx howto on compiling your own kernel and actually did it following the instruction given.
The booting was, as expected, a bit shaky and the kernel not very functional ahah.
However, what I'm a bit confused (but also interested) about is the fact that there is no mention of mkinitramfs in the howto.
Is this on purpose?
I have noticed that there is no initramfs in Nutyx as I installed it from the ISO and the kernel boots fine.
I like the idea of building a custom kernel with all the drivers I use built in and no initrams.

Another, a bit unrelated, observation is that the bzimage I got after following the howto is 3.4 MB and, albeit smaller than the stock kernel, is still larger than my stock kernel on Debian, which is 3.0 MB.
I compared the .config file from the kernel compiled with the howto and the Debian config and my custom .config is smaller, so I don't know what I did wrong, since the custom kernel I supposed to be very small.

Thierry:

--- Quote ---I like the idea of building a custom kernel with all the drivers I use built in and no initrams.
--- End quote ---
It's the all idea of the tuto


--- Quote ---I got after following the howto is 3.4 MB
--- End quote ---
Yes if you want to reduce more, you will need to an initrd file

To make an initrd, in root:

--- Code: ---cd /lib/modules
mkinitramfs <currentdirectory>
--- End code ---

black-clover:
Hi Tnut,
thanks for your reply.
In which ways would initramfs contribute too reduce the size of the kernel?
Also, considering that a kernel is loaded in memory all the time, what are the tradeoff of having a smaller kernel, but an initramfs, versus having a bigger kernel, without an initramfs?
Excuse me if my questions are basic stuff, but all this is kinda new for me.

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