Bug#498568: Debian cannot be installed on bootable SD cards
Hello Harald,
On Thursday 11 September 2008, Harald Welte wrote:
> The distribution installation initrd needs to
> 1. include and auto-load the sdhc.ko and sdhci_pci.ko kernel modules
Including these modules is a trivial change. However, it does not make
sense to do so until the installer supports installing to an SD card.
Until such time, adding them manually for testing purposes is trivial.
Auto-loading is a non-issue for Debian-Installer. If the kernel/udev
supports the device that will just work. (And I know it does work as the
module gets loaded fine on my laptop.)
> 2. create the /dev/mmcblk* device nodes as per udev/hotplug events
Not an issue. Should just work.
> The actual distribution installation program needs to
> 1. recognize /dev/mmcblk* as block devices that can be used as
> target device
This is the main issue. As Debian Installer uses libparted for
partitioning the real question is whether or not libparted supports these
devices. If that is true then very minor adjustments in partman should
suffice to support partitioning them.
> 2. use a grub-install or similar program that can discover the bios
> drive number to /dev/mmcblk* device name mapping
This is essentially outside the scope of the installer itself. Once grub
(or grub2) supports the devices the installer should need at most minor
changes in its grub-installer component. Grub support is thus a
pre-requirement for adding support in the installer.
Main thing to get support in Debian Installer is to find someone who has
both the hardware and the motivation to work on this. As said before, the
actual changes in D-I itself should be trivial.
If someone were to sponsor or loan me an SD card, I'd be happy to check if
libparted supports it and, if it does, do the needed partman changes.
Cheers,
FJP
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