Re: arm port plans for the squeeze cycle
On 8/29/09, Martin Michlmayr <tbm@cyrius.com> wrote:
> * Gordon Farquharson <gordonfarquharson@gmail.com> [2009-08-27 09:33]:
> > Is anybody planning on implementing a scheme to migrate from arm
> > installations to armel, e.g. http://wiki.debian.org/ArchTakeover?
> Riku was working on this but I'm not sure it got anywhere.
Another way to do this possible might be to stop trying to do it
in-place on a running system, but to create the new system on
different media, then boot the new kernel with that as the rootfs then
if that works ok, copy the new system over the old.
This saves you from the cataclysmic moment when libc and other
essential libraries are replaced, removes the need for a kernel that
runs both old and new types of binaries (can the i386/amd64 really run
powerpc binaries in emulation mode or vice versa?), doesn't make it
impossible on systems with >50% disk usage on the main system and
means you can test whether the migration was successful before wiping
out the old one. What the person can use for the scratch rootfs I
guess varies from device to device, but I wouldn't expect a
nontechnical user to be attempting such a thing anyway.
Does kexec work between different architectures? That would make the
boot-into-scratch-system stage and copy-back phases smoother than
making each person fiddle with options in the bootloader. I assume
there's some standard Debian interface for installing a new kernel in
the original system as part of copyback, whether that be to a grublike
loader or into flash memory.
M
Reply to: