How to include programs in "rescue mode"

[hjkl]

Hi,


Is there any way to include programs (i.e. vim instead of vi) in the "rescue mod" (as in, when you get dropped into a root shell when something goes wrong) because I find it a pain to do anything there when vim isn't there.

Same with other software I use which isn't included in it.
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Having problems compiling since 2021

[NeddySeagoon]

hjkl,

What you put in the the initrd, or initrds, is up to you. Its just a cpio archive of other cpio archives.
How you do it do depends on how you build the initrd.

You may have several initrds and grub will load them all.
To add an initrd, determine the files you need with lddtree.
e.g.

[hjkl]

[NeddySeagoon]

hjkl,

I've never used genkernel, so I can't help there.

You would need to look at how the initrd is defined and add to it.
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[szatox]

[Goverp]

I've never used genkernel, so this may be irrelevant, but most initramfs setups I've met use busybox, especially for rescue mode. AFAIK, by default busybox contains a vi editor. If yours doesn't, perhaps genkernel is disabling it in the initramfs build, in which case it ought to be possible to change its busybox config to put it back.

Whoops, sorry, skimmed the original article too fast. You want vim instead of vi. Ignore me.
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Greybeard

[Goverp]

You might be able to use the initramfs file list generated by my script; not sure how that fits into genkernel.
However, from experience without genkernel, I can say you may well trip over vim's prereqs and their config files. Without checking, I expect you might need to get ncurses working in the initramfs environment. AFAIR there's a thread somewhere in the forums that calls out a couple of config files it needs that you'd otherwise miss.
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Greybeard

[hjkl]

[Goverp]