How To Install dracut-core on Ubuntu 18.04

In this tutorial we learn how to install dracut-core on Ubuntu 18.04. dracut-core is Low-level tool for generating an initramfs image (core tools)

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install dracut-core on Ubuntu 18.04.

What is dracut-core

dracut-core is:

Unlike existing initramfs’s, this is an attempt at having as little as possible hard-coded into the initramfs as possible. The initramfs has (basically) one purpose in life – getting the rootfs mounted so that we can transition to the real rootfs. This is all driven off of device availability. Therefore, instead of scripts hard-coded to do various things, we depend on udev to create device nodes for us and then when we have the rootfs’s device node, we mount and carry on. Having the root on MD, LVM2, LUKS is supported as well as NFS, iSCSI, NBD and FCOE with dracut-network.

There are three methods to install dracut-core on Ubuntu 18.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install dracut-core Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install dracut-core using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install dracut-core

Install dracut-core Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install dracut-core using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install dracut-core

Install dracut-core Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install dracut-core using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install dracut-core

How To Uninstall dracut-core on Ubuntu 18.04

To uninstall only the dracut-core package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove dracut-core

Uninstall dracut-core And Its Dependencies

To uninstall dracut-core and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 18.04, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove dracut-core

Remove dracut-core Configurations and Data

To remove dracut-core configuration and data from Ubuntu 18.04 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge dracut-core

Remove dracut-core configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove dracut-core configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge dracut-core

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install dracut-core package on Ubuntu 18.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.