Okay, this is a kind of strange question, but here goes...

As of Red Hat 5.3 and 5.4 (and all derived distros, such as Scientific and CentOS) there is a bug in nash that adds significantly to boot time (the "waiting for driver initialization" bug). There is a patch for this bug but it hasn't made it into the repos, so for now, users are stuck with long boot times.

What I'm wondering is, are there any linuxrc interpreters out there that can substitute for nash? If so, how would I change the routine for generating the initrd so that the substitute program would be used?

(Yes, I realize I could patch nash myself. Unfortunately that would be quite a pain in the neck to actually do... Which is why I'm looking for alternatives.)

Six of one half dozen of the other - Substituting interpreters would be a wash as far as maintenance, etc... when compared to applying this patch. The patch is available below, and it's a piece of cake to apply.



Index: mkinitrd-5.1.2/nash/nash.c
===================================================================
--- mkinitrd-5.1.2/nash/nash.c.orig 2006-07-29 22:58:05.000000000 -0300
+++ mkinitrd-5.1.2/nash/nash.c 2006-07-29 23:29:47.000000000 -0300
@@ -1616,9 +1616,9 @@ stabilizedMtime(char *path, int iteratio
eprintf("stabilized: stat %s: %m\n", path);
return -1;
}
- eprintf("last: %ld.%ld sb: %ld.%ld now: %ld.%ld\n", last.tv_sec, last.tv_nsec, sb.st_mtime, sb.st_atim.tv_nsec, now.tv_sec, now.tv_usec * 1000);
- if (sb.st_mtime == last.tv_sec
- && sb.st_atim.tv_nsec == last.tv_nsec) {
+ eprintf("last: %ld.%ld sb: %ld.%ld now: %ld.%ld\n", last.tv_sec, last.tv_nsec, sb.st_mtim.tv_sec, sb.st_mtim.tv_nsec, now.tv_sec, now.tv_usec * 1000);
+ if (sb.st_mtim.tv_sec == last.tv_sec
+ && sb.st_mtim.tv_nsec == last.tv_nsec) {
if (++count == goal)
return changed;
} else {
@@ -1627,8 +1627,8 @@ stabilizedMtime(char *path, int iteratio
}

udelayspec(interval);
- last.tv_sec = sb.st_atim.tv_sec;
- last.tv_nsec = sb.st_atim.tv_nsec;
+ last.tv_sec = sb.st_mtim.tv_sec;
+ last.tv_nsec = sb.st_mtim.tv_nsec;
if (iterations != -1)
iterations--;
} while (iterations == -1 || iterations > 0);
@@ -1729,12 +1729,8 @@ usage:
if (!file)
goto usage;

- interval_ts.tv_sec = 0;
- while (interval > 999) {
- interval_ts.tv_sec += 1;
- interval -= 999;
- }
- interval_ts.tv_nsec = interval * 1000000;
+ interval_ts.tv_sec = interval / 1000;
+ interval_ts.tv_nsec = (interval % 1000) * 1000000;

if (do_poll)
rc = stabilizedPoll(file, iterations, interval_ts, 10);
Index: mkinitrd-5.1.2/nash/util.h
===================================================================
--- mkinitrd-5.1.2/nash/util.h.orig 2006-07-11 17:17:42.000000000 -0300
+++ mkinitrd-5.1.2/nash/util.h 2006-07-29 22:53:10.000000000 -0300
@@ -116,32 +116,23 @@ extern int getDevNumFromProc(char * file

extern int stringsort(const void *v0, const void *v1);

-static void __attribute__((used))
+static inline void
+udelayspec(struct timespec rem)
+{
+ while (nanosleep (&rem, &rem) == -1 && errno == EINTR)
+ continue;
+}
+
+static inline void
udelay(long long usecs)
{
- struct timespec rem = {0,0}, req = {0,0};
- struct timespec *reqp = &req, *remp = &rem, *tmp;
+ struct timespec rem = {0,0};

- while (usecs > 999999) {
- rem.tv_sec++;
- usecs -= 999999;
- }
- rem.tv_nsec = usecs * 1000;
-
- do {
- tmp = reqp;
- reqp = remp;
- remp = tmp;
- errno = 0;
- } while (nanosleep(reqp, remp) == -1 && errno == EINTR);
+ rem.tv_sec = usecs / 1000000;
+ rem.tv_nsec = (usecs % 1000000) * 1000;
+ udelayspec (rem);
}

-#define udelayspec(ts) ({ \
- long long __delay = (ts.tv_nsec - (ts.tv_nsec % 1000)) \
- + (ts.tv_sec * 1000000); \
- udelay(__delay); \
- })
-
extern char *readlink_malloc(const char *filename);

#define readlinka(_filename

In my situation (using CentOS on my own laptop) I tend to think that maintenance wouldn't be such a big deal. Installing all the stuff I need to compile nash, on the other hand, and recompiling it after each update... I'd much rather just reconfigure the initrd generation to produce something that didn't use nash. If that's actually possible.

Well, if you want to be cutting edge, look at the Dracut project. It is being released as part of Fedora 12. Basically it is a nash/mkinitrd replacement.