First of all, here's what I want to try and accomplish -- it seems reasonable to me. Then again, maybe it's not reasonable.
I'd like a small, compressed root fs on hand that I can load into a RAM disk when booting, as an alternate boot device using boot options, mainly as a diagnostics and tools root for using against a root on-disk that needs a fsck or anything similiar.
I considered building something similar myself and thought, good grief, there has to be a plethora of compressed root fs's very much like this already built that I can just use and run in an 8, 16, 32 or even 64 mb footprint (such as like what one might run from a USB drive, for instance? that would work too since USB booting is an option on the hardware I have in mind.)
Can anyone point to a good, ready-to-use compressed root fs or validate this as a useful approach to root fs repairs/diagnositcs, etc.?
Cross-posted to c.o.l.embedded, since surely someone there would have a useful handle on this approach (or why to avoid it and use a different approach.)
Thanks, /usr/ceo