[opensuse-factory] Re: Why does MS-Windows need no "initrd-equivalent" in order to boot w/a wider range of x86[-64] compat HW?
Cristian Rodríguez wrote:
El 28/11/12 21:07, Linda Walsh escribió:
Perhaps someone can explain to me why Windows doesn't need a pre-boot ramdisk in order to boot, while Linux does?
Linux does not need an initrd to boot, distributions do need it to support a wide variety of booting scenarios and not driving developers insane in the process.
That deflects the question. What wide variety of booting scenarios are supported by linux that are not supported on Windows? Windows runs embedded, headless, on rescue disks, servers, desktops...um...where is the need? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 2012-11-28 at 17:09 -0800, Linda Walsh wrote:
Cristian Rodríguez wrote:
El 28/11/12 21:07, Linda Walsh escribió:
Perhaps someone can explain to me why Windows doesn't need a pre-boot ramdisk in order to boot, while Linux does?
Linux does not need an initrd to boot, distributions do need it to support a wide variety of booting scenarios and not driving developers insane in the process.
That deflects the question.
What wide variety of booting scenarios are supported by linux that are not supported on Windows?
Windows runs embedded, headless, on rescue disks, servers, desktops...um...where is the need?
I have at least 5 different machines around here that can be installed from original MS-cd/dvd but lack support for all sorts of things. Some even don't recognise network hardware, so you need a different machine connected to the Net, and an USB-stick to download them. Hence most MS-machine come pre-installed with all of those additional drivers & patches. Out-of-the-box, most distro's recognise far much more hardware. It is now the other-way-round, compared with the situations in the 90's -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
On 11/29/2012 09:26 AM, Hans Witvliet wrote:
from original MS-cd/dvd but lack support for all sorts of things. Some even don't recognise network hardware, so you need a different machine connected to the Net, and an USB-stick to download them.
+1 Speaking of XP - yes, the beast is still alive - I even experienced once that it didn't support USB, so I had to burn a CD with the USB driver, and then also installed the drivers for the network card, the sound card, and the video card, ... Well, and going back to the 'initrd' topic: windows seems to reconfigure itself to boot from the hardware it is installed on - you see that when you try to boot from that disk in another PC. Therefore, I'd say, there is something similar to initrd on Windows, but they didn't do it "right", they simply got it plain wrong. Have a nice day, Berny -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
Hans Witvliet wrote:
I have at least 5 different machines around here that can be installed
This is another side point. I'm not talking about installation. I'm talking about why initrd is needed AFTER the OS is installed w/all it's drivers -- i.e. during normal usage. Windows doesn't need extra disks / drivers to be pre-loaded unless you are booting from a rescue disk/installation disk. Once you have it installed, Windows doesn't need such things. Why does linux need an initrd? It seems the SuSE folks are saying this is a requirement of the linux kernel -- yet windows doesn't have any similar analogous need. So why does linux need this? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
participants (3)
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Bernhard Voelker -
Hans Witvliet -
Linda Walsh