[bug] fail to boot, with systemd hook in initrd

[skinkie]

To give some background. I am trying to achieve the ability to use "systemd.volatile=overlay" as means to reduce writes to a microSD card. The almighty LP has prophesied this would only work if systemd is part of initrd. Within ArchLinux we can make it so by /etc/mkinitcpio.conf HOOKS=(base systemd autodetect modconf block filesystems keyboard fsck) Some additional background: I am using F2FS as my rootfs.

Why I create an initramfs using mkinitcpio -k 5.4.51-1-ARCH -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux.img the following particulary occurs. More than average the system does not boot. It stops with an error in Switch Root. I am unable to get into a rescue shell due the statement that the root account is locked. Passwd has been applied to root, so I am quite sure that is not the root cause. Sometimes after a few [Enter] keys the boot continues. The problems are quite reproducible, but sometimes it boots without any issues.

I am able to normally boot the system by removing systemd from the initrd (and use the stock udev). I don't know what would be the best place to follow this up.

I have solved the writing issue with some other means, specifically switching timesyncd to chrony, and using some f2fs specific mount options (noatime,background_gc=off,checkpoint=disable) here explicitly knowing what I am doing. That having said, I would rather have the overlayfs working. echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/block_dump was a great help too.