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    You can boot without an initramfs. Your answer expounds on the merits of initramfs, but that doesn't apply to typical embedded systems, and even on desktops or servers where an initramfs is recommended, it is not compulsory. Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 1:38
  • @Gilles - no you cant. Regardless of what you do, you have initramfs. It's compiled into the kernel - right now, your kernel, my kernel, all of our kernel's. Read the kernel docs - my entire post was a copy-paste. You are incorrect. How can you dispute the official documentation? Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 2:06
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    I don't dispute the official documentation, I dispute the conclusions that you're drawing from it. You're reading documentation that explains how to use an initramfs. Nowhere does it state that the initramfs has to be used. Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 2:12
  • @Gilles If this is not good enough: " The 2.6 kernel build process always creates a gzipped cpio format initramfs archive and links it into the resulting kernel binary. By default, this archive is empty (consuming 134 bytes on x86)...." I can do better. The above was a 2 or 3 minute web search. Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 2:15
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    I have read the documentation. I do this for a living. It's not a matter of opinion. There is always an initramfs, but it isn't necessarily used for booting. I can't find a decent explanation of the kernel structure for that case, presumably because it's the classic case that's thought not to warrant explanation. The main logic is in do_mounts.c — specifically prepare_namespace, in which saved_root_name comes populated with the root= command line argument. Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 2:46