GRUB parameters - do the Linux kernel arguments need to be fully qualified?

Question

For the parameters added to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX, is it necessary to fully qualify each one? For example, is it necessary to have i8042.nomux=1 rather than i8042.nomux?

Answer 1

It is not documented. The kernel parameters states:

The kernel parses parameters from the kernel command line up to “–”; if it doesn’t recognize a parameter and it doesn’t contain a ‘.’, the parameter gets passed to init: parameters with "=" go into init’s environment, others are passed as command line arguments to init. Everything after “–” is passed as an argument to init.

The = changes how the parameter is treated but only if not recognized and there is no ".". The only part that applies in this case is "Everything after “–” is passed as an argument to init". No mention of a boolean needing an explicit value.

The source code only has this on nomux:

static bool i8042_nomux;
module_param_named(nomux, i8042_nomux, bool, 0);
MODULE_PARM_DESC(nomux, "Do not check whether an active multiplexing controller is present.");
...
if (i8042_nomux || i8042_check_mux()) {

So no, not required but it is always better to be explicit.

Edit:

The only AU I could find not using =1:

Touchpad is not recognized