RPi recently made a change to the firmware that allows multiple initrd images to be loaded in config.txt
The format is as follows. You can load as many as you want, as long as you stay under the limit of 80 characters in the line.
initramfs initrd_number1.img,initrd_number2.img,3.img followkernel
Reference:
https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/1318This will allow us to shrink the images, as there is no need to replicate all of the standard code and libraries in all of the initrd's. The image would contain 1 base initrd loaded by every board type, then 3 different kernel packages board dependant.
If the kernel modules were separated from the rest of the initrd, it might be easier to handle kernel upgrades....