ata and scsi modules in initrd

[Callum Lerwick]

On Sun, 2007-12-02 at 20:03 +0100, dragoran wrote:
> [..]
> > I didn't say we should have all modules in the initrd. But having the
> > most common would IMHO a good thing.
> 
> +1 for having all pata/sata drivers in the initrd by default.

One of the things that used to make Linux superior to Windows is the
fact that you could pop out a hard drive and plug it into an entirely
different machine, and it would Just Work. Well, except for X. Stupid X.
But at least you could boot it, switch the X driver and be done with it.

But then initrds were introduced, and now we're baking in system
specifics into it. Now I have all kinds of trouble with drivers not
being found, and volume groups not being found. Only solution is to boot
a rescue disk and rebuild the initrd, using an incredibly arcane series
of commands. I pity the n00b who tries to upgrade their system.

And Windows has gotten worse in this regard too. Back in the days of
Win95/98, you could ALWAYS, at the very least, boot the system into
rescue mode, go into the device manager, select the PCI bus and remove
it. This forced it to rescan and reload all the drivers. 5-10 reboots
later, bam, you're done. But now with Windows XP, if you change the
motherboard out from under it, its quite likely to not boot. At all. Not
even rescue mode. You're screwed. You have to re-install from scratch.
Supposedly there's a way to "reseal" Windows XP, but you have to do it
*before* you switch the board. I was unaware of this method until it was
too late so I didn't get a chance to try it. And no, I'm even using a
copy of XP Pro which is free of activation bullshit. I pity the fool who
buys a legitimate XP. (And no, I do in fact have a legitimate XP Pro
license, it came stuck to the bottom of my (used) laptop :)

http://www.motherboard.windowsreinstall.com/winxp.htm#Solution%204:%
20Microsoft%20SYSPREP%A0
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