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GUI to edit initrd.gz

Posted: Wed 26 Oct 2011, 11:53
by emil
Forum member RSH published a nice little GUI to unpack/edit/repack the initrd.gz in the german forum section.
This is sometimes necessary, if you want to have some special settings, or you want to change messages during boot.

This is a pet which has a menu entry in "Utilities"
Edit-Initrdgz-1.0-en.pet

Might spare some forum search for the right commands ...

Re: GUI to edit initrd.gz

Posted: Wed 26 Oct 2011, 12:16
by saintless
emil wrote:Forum member RSH published a nice little GUI to unpack/edit/repack the initrd.gz in the german forum section.
This is sometimes necessary, if you want to have some special settings, or you want to change messages during boot.

This is a pet which has a menu entry in "Utilities"
Edit-Initrdgz-1.0-en.pet

Might spare some forum search for the right commands ...
Thanks, I needed to change the initrd file a few months ago and I used the information here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=24899
With a pet package it will be more easy for everyone.

Re: GUI to edit initrd.gz

Posted: Wed 26 Oct 2011, 13:09
by L18L
emil wrote:Forum member RSH published a nice little GUI to unpack/edit/repack the initrd.gz in the german forum section.
This is sometimes necessary, if you want to have some special settings, or you want to change messages during boot.
...
I have used it now to change messages during boot in slacko52

Thank you, emil and RSH :)
L

Posted: Thu 10 Nov 2011, 05:18
by RSH
Edit initrd.gz is now Version 1.1!

UPDATED at 10.11.2011

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 208#575208

Posted: Sat 04 Feb 2012, 12:13
by Peakeen
"Who needs a utility? How difficult can it be to extract a file from an archive and then reinsert it?" Or so I thought before discovering cpio and having all my prejudices about unix confirmed and reinforced.

An archive utility could be called "archive" but this is unix so let's call it "cpio" for copy-in-and-out. Then let's provide switches -i and -o for in and out. Too obvious? OK we'll use i for out and o for in. And how about t for list?

Then, instead of simply having the archive name as a parameter, let's insist on using the greater-than and less-than signs as little arrows pointing to and from (or is it from and to?) the archive filename.

And the files to be inserted could be the other parameter but, no, let's make the user pipe it in from a listing utility. And, since most users are familiar with 'ls' , let's construct it so that it expects input from 'find'. That's more obscure and has some really weird parameters...

I could go on but, at this stage, I lost the will to live and looked for someone else's solution. Then, when I think I've almost cracked it, I discover the instructions are in German. Gott in Himmel, give me strength! At least it's not Finnish!

Ernst, RSH, vielen dank!

Posted: Sat 04 Feb 2012, 13:00
by 01micko
Why cpio?

RPMs have used cpio for ages, Red Hat isn't about to change that.

There are plenty of other links, go look :)

I wonder if windows in some way is tied to legacy stuff? :lol:

Good on you RSH..

GUI to edit initrd.gz

Posted: Wed 22 Feb 2012, 14:45
by RSH
I discover the instructions are in German. Gott in Himmel, give me strength! At least it's not Finnish!
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Uploaded version 1.3. German and English localisations. German and Engish short tutorial. 8)

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 371#581371

Posted: Mon 28 Oct 2013, 11:36
by nic007
This utility is not working for me. It opens 4 files/scripts to edit. Then I do this, save it but the rebuilt initrd.gz is only a few bytes big. Surely this can't be right?

Posted: Mon 28 Oct 2013, 12:02
by saintless
nic007 wrote:This utility is not working for me. It opens 4 files/scripts to edit. Then I do this, save it but the rebuilt initrd.gz is only a few bytes big. Surely this can't be right?
Quick test with ver.1.4 and it works fine.
Open and read the help file.
initrd.gz file has to be in /root, otherwise you will get only few bytes big initrd.gz
If you still have troubles here is how you can edit initrd from command line:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=24899

Cheers

Posted: Sat 16 Nov 2013, 08:17
by charlie6
Hi,
thanks for this tool !
here is version 1.4 with french locale

Posted: Sat 16 Nov 2013, 10:38
by mikeb
why cpio .... Why is cpio better than tar? A number of reasons.
sorry had to be annoying...ANYTHING is better than TAR!!! A primitive archive system based on tape drives without an index cos on tapes you could not have one.

Cpio is ok for initrds but needs some messing around to copy system files to the main system.
It also precludes reverting to the initrd for a clean shutdown....its more suited to embedded systems eg routers. You also cannot peek into the /initrd for convenience as half the original contents are missing...the obsession to save a KB or 2 goes too far...I am with Peakeen on this one.

ext2/gz initrds ftw.... got an unpack/pack script for those if anyone wants.

Don't even know why I posted here ... guess I had an itch to scratch :D

mike