Comment # 7 on bug 1189772 from Martin Wilck

(In reply to Felix Miata from comment #6)
> FWIW, on Debians there's been this since forever:
> # Configuration file for update-initramfs(8)

This isn't very helpful, because you know pretty well that openSUSE isn't using
initramfs-tools. We use dracut, and even small deviations from upstream dracut
are being frowned upon by some.

> IMO, openSUSE should also have an admin option not to rebuild, regardless of
> use case. What I do on openSUSE is set immutable flag on initrds. It doesn't
> stop the rebuild waste of CPU cycles and SSD writes, but I get the result I
> want.

Fair enough. Please open a feature request. Comments on closed bugs aren't well
suited for tracking progress. 

Continuing nonetheless:

My latest "playground" version of suse-module-tools postpones initramfs
generation to the %posttrans stage in general, if INITRD_IN_POSTTRANS is set in
the environment (currently this variable is set by some packages, in particular
kernel module packages/KMPs, during the installation process). I see no issue
with adding support for another environment variable, or some other sort of
configuration avoiding building the initramfs entirely.

And this is precisely the problem - I am unsure were such generic configuration
options should live. 

In the past we would have used some file in /etc/sysconfig, but that's pretty
much out of fashion these days. Global environment variables, set e.g. via
/etc/environment, would work. This has the advantage that they can be easily
set temporarily (an admin could simply set the env var before calling zypper),
and that almost every Linux user has some basic mental concept of environment
variables. The alternative wold be some (new?) configuration file somewhere
under /etc, and/or a flag  under /run for one-time disabling.

Thorsten, Ludwig, what would be your take on this?