Want to try and help test dracut? Now is the time!

Unlike Archlinux's default mkinitcpio, dracut offers a much more modular, extensible and configurable initramfs builder toolset, as well as even allowing booting the kernel directly without a bootloader if desired, among a lot of other differences.

I made a package to test the use of dracut a bit ago, that basically does everything for you, and I've been using it successfully ever since.

How to join the dracut party:

  1. Make a snapshot! You never know :stuck_out_tongue:
  2. Install the dracut support package: # pacman -S garuda-dracut-support
  3. Confirm removal of any conflicts
  4. Rebuild your initramfs. I have not yet added a convenience script for this, the easiest way to do this would be to reinstall your kernel (for example # pacman -S linux-zen) or reinstall any of your dkms packages.
  5. Enjoy!

Just a quick note: Dracut does make less efficient images when it comes down to it. Space usage will be a bit higher.

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I'd appreciate some help testing an ISO that is fully using dracut: https://us-ny-mirror.garudalinux.org/iso/garuda/kde-lite/221111/
This might be release material and I need some people to vouch for it on their hardware for suree

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I was not able to get into the installer. I downloaded the ISO, verified the checksum, added it to a Ventoy stick, and when I booted it launched a Dracut debug shell.

Apologies for the lousy picture, I couldn't figure out another way to grab that info from the debug shell and Tesseract couldn't make any sense of my terrible snapshot.

I did save the rdsosreport.txt file like it suggested, but the PrivateBin appears to be broken at the moment (or is that just me? :cry:):

I can figure out somewhere else to paste the file if it would be helpful to take a look.

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[Edit to above (edit isn't working)]

I cracked open someone else's PrivateBin instance and was able to upload the file there: 0.g.gg

NixOS ? …

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Now fixed thanks!

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Nice one! :white_check_mark:

This is off-topic for this thread, but speaking of PrivateBin: I was thinking it might make more sense with the forum's use case in mind if the default setting for the expiration was set to "Never" instead of "1 week". Typically we are using the bin for lengthy log files, not sensitive information that poses a risk if it stays up.

If someone is reading through an old forum post and finds a PrivateBin link, chances are the linked file will already be gone because most folks don't bother to change the settings for just posting some long error message they got.

If someone did want to use the paste bin for a sensitive document, they would likely be reviewing/adjusting the expiration settings anyway.

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Sure thing, will change it soonish! :slight_smile:

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Same here and same with garuda-dr460nized-linux-zen-221113.iso

Summary

I use KDE ISO from garuda-dr460nized-linux-zen-221019.iso
and got on HDMI 1920x1080 Monitor on 100% and correct 1920x1080 very large apps/fonts.

I can’t use kpartionm. I must update the system to get gparted, looks normal, and I can create new partition for dualboot install on my nvidia/3770 Garuda backup Server.

Currently building a new ISO in hopes of fixing this. I wonder why this worked perfectly fine on a VM but does not work on hardware :thinking:

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Boot fine on Laptop, but on Nvidea PC not.
With NV driver stop after first line
With free driver

https://us-ny-mirror.garudalinux.org/iso/garuda/kde-lite/221114/

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No DE's are running smoothly on this PC at the moment, either I have this huge display or the AltGr + Ctrl don't work, even on the "onboard" one. I wonder how I was able to install i3wm without problems about a month ago.

I guess it's all about booting for now, but what's annoying is when you go to the trouble of setting everything up for your language and keyboard and after booting everything is in English. I've been doing this for a while but I'm still looking for where the - / etc. is on my keyboard. :slight_smile:

Everything so bright, but fortunately the brightness control works here on the laptop.

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So, just for tracking. One thing I did take specific mentional notice of is that switching to dracut on my tabtop where I use LUKS on, I get asked the password per normal for grub (which is still slow as heck), but when I start to boot as well, dracut prompts for password also, not getting it passed on from grub.

This is from the defacto Garuda installation where all of / is btrfs, incorporating /boot.

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The decryption key probably needs to be added to the initrd. If you converted, you might want to see if that is happening.

If it is a clean install, Calamares should be handling that.

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Well, it’s not a key, it’s a passphrase passed to grub itself, which in mkinitcpio it’s passed on somehow.

This is an existing installation from Sep 09, 2022’s ISO.

I’m not 100% sure how the process works from taking input from grub, loading the slot from there, continuing to grub to boot the OS, and when/where/how the exchange of the open slot is passed on to the initramfs, whether it be initcpio or dracut.

It is a keyfile. What happens is that grub unlocks the partition which contains /boot. The initrd/initramfs has a copy of the keyfile(which is stored at the root of /. The initrd uses the keyfile to unlock the luks partition.

If you look at your luks partition you should see two keys, one for the password and one for the key file.

There is no exchange, the initramfs/initrd unlocks the luks partition again transparently.

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You are correct!

-rw-------   1 root root 2048 Sep 15 14:44 crypto_keyfile.bin

So, when I switch to dracut in this… What would I need to do to get dracut to utilize this properly?

What I did to install it was sudo pacman -S garuda-dracut-support, which itself conflicted and removed mkinitcpio, and it was very noisy about varrious things, but it was only the key and having to enter the LUKS passphrase twice that made me roll back to mkinitcpio for the time.

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Add a file called /etc/dracut.conf.d/luks.conf which contains:

install_items+=" /etc/crypttab /crypto_keyfile.bin "

dracut is more verbose than mkinitcpio by default. It will output a lot of “stuff” when it builds an initramfs.

2 Likes

That… Does not seem to be work right off the bat. It was still prompting for the passphrase within dracut, amidst the gray bootloader splash thing that’s showing up now.

I’d created the file, with one typo in the crypto_keyfile.bin when I installed dracut, and to correct it, I ultimately had to fix that and simply reinstall linux-zen to get it working again. dracut --force did not correct it alone, for some reason.

I don’t know why it would :eyes: