When init on initramfs is called during the initial boot as part of the installation
process, its tasks differ from those mentioned above:
Finding the Installation Medium
When starting the installation process, your machine loads an installation Kernel
and a special init containing the YaST installer. The YaST installer is running
in a RAM le system and needs to have information about the location of the in-
stallation medium in order to access it for installing the operating system.
Initiating Hardware Recognition and Loading Appropriate Kernel Modules
As mentioned in Section 7.1.1, “initramfs” (page 129), the boot process starts
with a minimum set of drivers that can be used with most hardware congurations.
init starts an initial hardware scanning process that determines the set of drivers
suitable for your hardware conguration. The names of the modules needed for
the boot process are written to INITRD_MODULES in /etc/sysconfig/
kernel. These names are used to generate a custom initramfs that is needed
to boot the system. If the modules are not needed for boot but for coldplug, the
modules are written to /etc/sysconfig/hardware/hwconfig-*. All
devices that are described with conguration les in this directory are initialized
in the boot process.
Loading the Installation System
As soon as the hardware is properly recognized, the appropriate drivers are loaded.
The udev program creates the special device les and init starts the installation
system with the YaST installer.
Starting YaST
Finally, init starts YaST, which starts package installation and system congu-
ration.
Booting a Linux System 131
