Hello utu;

Quote Originally Posted by utu View Post
I use a LiveUSB made from Knoppix 7.0.5 LiveCD.
I note that when either the LiveCD or the LiveUSB is booted, that
there is a file '/init' in the root directory '/'
which is root:root ownership, dated 20 Dec 2012, and 38932 bytes.

Is this the same or different than the 'init' one finds using the cpio route?
I think it is indeed the same init file: While playing with the bootfrom= cheat code (to learn what I had wrought upon poor ttop with my "shot from the hip" test suggestion), I was able to interrupt the repeating search across devices for a KNOPPIX image files by pressing the Ctrl+C keys. I was then left in a shell, from which I could access a root file system containig some scripts and kernel modules (.ko suffix).

I remembered the initrd boot file system approach then. The "cpio route" for unpacking minirt.gz is just something I made up to make the init boot script accessible in a more complete Linux environment (and without interrupting the boot process in such a drastic way).