Reduce size of initramfs

[osresearch]

update-initramfs -u -v shows that literally the kitchen sink is included, with megabytes of firmware for obscure devices and drivers that are unneeded to boot the machine. Surely there is a way to reduce the amount that it includes.

[osresearch]

Yow - I just built 5.6.13 with the config from Ubuntu and the initrd is 500 megs due to a bazllion modules.

[vamposdecampos]

The MODULES setting in initramfs.conf might help; the default of most adds... most modules.

[osresearch]

Setting MODULES=dep in /etc/initramfs/initramfs.conf and moving the unused firmware (amd, amdgpu, amd-ucode, nvidia, and radeon) out of /lib/firmware reduced the default ubuntu initrd from 84 MB to 28 MB. My X1 still boots fine.

This would be helpful to automate in the setup script, although it might be a "nice to have" rather than a "must have" since it doesn't change the security posture that much.

[osresearch]

Downside to MODULES=dep is that nls_iso8859-1.ko is not included, so the initramfs recovery shell is unable to mount /boot/efi. That is problematic for #56 since it needs access to the ESP for measurements and signing.

[osresearch]

nls kernel module is included in initrd build now: c08a4cb