[ale] eth numbering change

[Phil Turmel]

On 02/12/2017 12:42 PM, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Feb 2017 13:38:07 -0800

> In addition to what Alex writes in the preceding paragraph, some people
> prefer not to have initramfs at all.

Yup.  Embedded guys really don't want anything extra.  And they
customize their kernels to give them exactly what they want.

> The purpose of initramfs is ONLY to get the root partition readable
> enough to process /etc (let's forget about crazycases where /etc is a
> mountpoint), after which the boot process can do what it's supposed to
> do: Pull itself up by the bootstraps. The initramfs' init script should
> have been an easy, tiny shellscript in most cases.

People all over the world want faster boot.  The time spent initializing
just the devices needed to get to the boot partition and then mount its
filesystem can cover a great deal of parallel probing and discovery.  In
some cases, all of it.  People ask distros for faster boot times,
distros respond.  So what if there is substantial complexity needed to
deliver what their customers want.

> My personal observation tells me that with kernels ancient and modern
> (I'm using 4.9.x right now) and everything inbetween, disk device names
> are stable between boots. So personally, I might consider using the
> device name in order to perhaps compile ext4 drivers into my kernel and
> getting rid of the entire initramfs.

If you only have one SATA controller, one connected drive, and you defer
USB module loading, you can be pretty confident that your drive name
will be consistent.  Or you customize your kernel to do exactly what you
want.  If you're willing to do that, you need no-one's advice.

Everyone *not* willing to customize, but using a modern kernel, needs to
use an initramfs and proper partition IDs.

Phil