This clear, technical article introduces initramfs, a Linux 2.6 feature that enables an initial root filesystem and init program to reside in kernel memory cache, rather than on a ramdisk (as with initrd filesystems). Compared to initrd, intramfs can increase boot-time flexibility, memory efficiency, and simplicity, the author says.

One especially interesting feature for embedded Linux developers is that relatively simple, deeply embedded systems can use initramfs as their sole filesystem.

The article was written by Timesys's Rob Landley, who recently took over maintenance of BusyBox, one of the mose important open source applications for embedded Linux developers. Read the complete article here:

 
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