dracut for Debian ----------------- 1. Give it a try Currently dracut is not the default initrd creation tool in Debian. You can try dracut without removing initramfs-tools from your machine by following these steps: # apt-get --no-install-recommends install dracut-core cd /boot cp -p vmlinuz-4.0.9-6-amd64 vmlinuz-4.0.9-6-amd64~dracut dracut /boot/initrd.img-4.0.9-6-amd64~dracut update-grub You will get a new grub menu entry under advanced boot options, which you can boot then Select: Advanced options for Debian GNU/Linux Then: Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 4.0.9-6-amd64~dracut The initrd created by initramfs-tools will remain the default boot entry of grub. If the new initrd works for you, you can switch from initramfs-tools to dracut by installing the package dracut. This will then replace initramfs-tools. 2. Check the content of the dracut initrd lsinitrd /boot/initrd.img-4.0.9-6-amd64~dracut 3. i18n The module i18n for setting up the keyboard and the font is disabled in Debian. You cannot use the variables described in modules.d/10i18n/README. Instead, dracut uses the module 09console-setup which uses setupcon and is configured in the files /etc/default/keyboard (the keyboard) and /etc/default/console-setup (the font). If you prefer to configure by Debconf, you can use dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration and dpkg-reconfigure console-setup. -- Thomas Lange , Sat, 19 May 2018 18:50:02 +0200