# Linux Kernel Module Cheat
The perfect emulation setup to study and develop the <<linux-kernel>> v5.9.2, kernel modules, <<qemu-buildroot-setup,QEMU>>, <<gem5-buildroot-setup,gem5>> and x86_64, ARMv7 and ARMv8 <<userland-assembly,userland>> and <<baremetal-setup,baremetal>> assembly, <<c,ANSI C>>, <<cpp,C++>> and <<posix,POSIX>>. <<gdb>> and <<kgdb>> just work. Powered by <<about-the-qemu-buildroot-setup,Buildroot>> and <<about-the-baremetal-setup,crosstool-NG>>. Highly automated. Thoroughly documented. Automated <<test-this-repo,tests>>.

### 8.1. initrd in desktop distros

Most modern desktop distributions have an initrd in their root disk to do early setup.

The rationale for this is described at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_ramdisk

One obvious use case is having an encrypted root filesystem: you keep the initrd in an unencrypted partition, and then setup decryption from there.

I think GRUB then knows read common disk formats, and then loads that initrd to memory with a `/boot/grub/grub.cfg` directive of type:

    initrd /initrd.img-4.4.0-108-generic

Related: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6405083/initrd-and-booting-the-linux-kernel