I've managed to get D-I working on a Chinese ARM-based netbook. This was a
bit of a challenge as the only boot option available was the one used by
the "firmware upgrade" procedure we got with the netbook, which
essentially means I can boot a custom kernel from an external SD card and
that's it.
The solution I found was to piggy-back a micro-initramfs onto the kernel.
This micro-initramfs then mounts the external SD card, loads the real
full-sized D-I initramfs and then runs init in that.
The main component of the micro-initramfs is a modified version of Joey's
rootskel-bootfloppy. Once again the versatility of D-I has been proven.
I've used netboot [1] as installation method in order to keep the external
SD card available as a target for installation.
After getting the regular installer working I also tried getting the
graphical installer working - and with success. So that proves the theory
that it should now be easier to port the graphical installer to other
architectures.
Some additional details (and pics) can be found in my blog post:
http://alioth.debian.org/~fjp/log/posts/Debianizing_an_ARM-based_netbook.html
The source for my customizations can be found in my people dir:
http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/d-i/people/fjp/ctpc89e/#_people_fjp_ctpc89e_
Cheers,
FJP
[1] Yes, netboot booted off SD card; we really need to rename the
installation methods...
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