Actually I have just started writing a new boot loader, that would
allow this kind of thing. The original intention was to allow loading
modules required to mount the root partition (like the ide module
and/or the ext2fs module), but PnP stuff can be done this way too.
And it does use initrd, though in a slighly different way. First, it
will have built in ext2fs read-only support. And it will not _load_
an initrd image. It will create one and load the necessary files into
it. This way the initrd is not a "black box" any more, and what
should be loaded into it and what should be performed can be
specified through a simple config file.
I realize this is not strictly speaking a kernel issue, however, I
would like to hear some comments and opinions. Is this really doable?
Martynas