[TUHS] Re: Unix install & "standalone" package

[Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>]

Steffen Nurpmeso wrote in
 <20230904221059.sF2G0%steffen@sdaoden.eu>:
 |Norman Wilson wrote in
 | <9A989054DE79CE5059CBA74797391E39.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>:
 ...
 ||Perhaps the question to ask is why such a magic program is
 ||needed at all.  Is it just because programs like the shell
 ||have become so large and unwieldy that they won't fit in
 ||a small environment suitable for loading into an initramfs?
 ...
 |For my laptop it allows me easy boot management.
 ...
 |  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root     4596 Feb  4  2023  linux-init-s1.sh*
 |  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root     3646 Feb  4  2023  linux-init-lib.sh*
 |  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  5480120 Feb 11  2023  cryptsetup.static*
 |  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  1978368 Aug 15 18:51  busybox.static*
 |  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 10112672 Aug 26 18:44  ideapad-stage1.efi*

Only to add that this is because of Linux and the way it is doing
things.  If i would use FreeBSD on bare metal, then i would have
an EFI boot loader on EFI that knows (only) enough to ask for
passphrase (correct me if i am wrong), and can then boot the
kernel from FFS or ZFS.  (You have to choose dedicated ZFS boot
loader iirc, but despite that...)

I know GRUB (and maybe other) Linux bootloaders can do all that,
but they are huge, are badly maintained, or under-documented, let
alone with local manuals, and i am too stupid to configure them
(due to all that).  refind is ok, however.  But.. be aware of
typos in the configuration..

But anyhow.  With an EFI_STUB Linux kernel i can save me all that,
with busybox i get a complete environment (i then even create an
initrd in /boot/ on the fly so i do not have to type the password
a second time, that can (optionally) be cached, and is, actually

  -rw------- 1 root root  4495987 May 29 16:29 .kent.initrd.0

Unfortunately cryptsetup is needed even though, i think, the
kernel has anything needed; you just cannot access it.  cryptsetup
is only needed for "$cs open $PART_ROOT p_root --key-file -".
Of course i am no real Linux expert but only a do-it-yourself guy.
busybox allows me to manage this easily, to answer your question.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)