[uClibc] Linux 2.6 ROMFS vs EXT2

[Pete Flugstad]

Thanks for the responses.

ROMFS most definately can be used for initial ram disk.  There's nothing 
  wrong with this.  See example here (a bit dated, but still valid):

   http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=4395
   http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=4528

And, I've run a compact flash EXT3 system as a read-ONLY root 
(effectively EXT2 in this case) with /tmp a tmpfs and parts of /var 
pointing into temp.  This was done to save write cycles to the CF, and 
no reason not to.

However, I'd like to make this thing easier to upgrade, and using 
SYSLINUX with everything loaded from an initrd does this (just overwrite 
the initrd/vmlinuz and reboot).  So I'm looking for ways to do this all 
from RAM, and only save config data back to CF.

I've triple checked that I've got ROMFS compiled into my kernel (all 
built-in, NO modules), but the genromfs generated initrd.gz still won't 
mount as root.  I've got no idea why.

I can use the genext2fs to generate an EXT2 initrd and I'm probably 
going to do that, just to work around this problem.  I don't see any 
real problems with this (I don't care RO vs RW, since it's all in RAM 
anyway, so if it get's corrupted, just reboot).   Anyone know any pros 
or cons on ROMFS vs EXT2 for initrd?

Thanks,
Pete