/sbin/mkinitrd contains a variable "withusb" which contains either "1" or "0", however this variable is tested like this: if [ -n "$withusb" ]; then Which is always true because "withusb" always is a non zero lenght string, the correct test would be: if [ $withusb -ne 0 ]; then The attached patch fixes this.
Created attachment 134513 [details] PATCH: fixing --without-usb
Applied in CVS, thanks.