klibc only initramfs

[Adam Conrad]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2010 at 02:00:31AM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 10:26:48AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > 
> > You could obviously just fall back to using the full .so in the case of
> > initramfs generation.

If we can detect that the libc generated is unsuitable, then this
fallback seems safe enough.

> Also, changing back to a working initramfs may be rather hard, depending
> on the bootloader in use.

This argument holds for just about any change (epecially ones that we
suspect might behave different on different architectures, with
different bootloaders, or with different underlying storage techniques),
and the answer is the same in all cases.  Test, test, test.

I know it's nowhere near as true as it was a decade ago, but "people
running unstable should know how to fix something as simple as their
system failing to boot due to a broken bootloader/kernel/initrd".

Personally, I think the idea of cutting out the klibc duplication and
stripping eglibc during initramfs generation is a pretty reasonable
solution to this longstanding issue.

The extra upshot of this is that some of the weirder corner cases you
refer to that have bitten d-i in the past (A) have made the implementation
more robust, but more interestingly (B) new and similar issues will be
discovered and fixed more readily if this is being tested by more than
just a handful of installer builders/testers.

... Adam