Bug#664128: debian-installer: please default to grub-ieee1275 on powerpc instead of yaboot
tags 691264 -pending
thanks
On 10/23/2012 01:33 PM, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 01:06:06PM -0400, Milan Kupcevic wrote:
>> IBM Firmware does support filesystems, just not the same filesystems as
>> Macs and Pegasos. IBM Firmware likes FAT and iso9660, Mac wants HFS,
>> while Pegasos works with ext2, AFFS, and iso9660.
>>
>> If you put a bootloader on FAT filesystem you could put other meta
>> information in /ppc/bootinfo.txt file so that IBM Firmware and other IBM
>> boot management tools can get full textual description and optionally an
>> icon of the bootable OS. It would make it possible to dual boot Linux
>> (GRUB) and AIX while choosing which one you want to boot using standard
>> IBM tools (ie Multiboot menu). We will see if we want to go this way or
>> we want to keep resetting firmware variables using '/sbin/nvsetenv' on
>> Linux and 'bootlist' on AIX when we want to reboot into the other OS.
>
> I have never got it to work with a fat filesystem. I have tried on a
> p710 and a p520. Maybe it worked on older ones.
>
>> Yaboot installer installs yaboot on IBM Power machines exactly the same way.
>>
>> This will not make life harder nor easier for IBM users. Grub
>> installation was not offered on IBM Power machines by d-i until now, and
>> will not be offered after this particular change.
>
> Well it looks like it will if you happen to create the /boot/grub
> partition, except it won't work that way. So the error message will
> tell you to do something that won't work.
Partitioning recipe for IBM Power machines already creates PReP
partition for yaboot. If we do check for PReP partition in addition to
/boot/grub to allow grub installer it will make grub the default
bootloader on IBM Power machines for wheezy.
This would be great if we are sure that d-i installs grub with no
issues. I did not test it, so I'm not quite sure.
>
>> Thank you for providing information about your experience with grub on
>> IBM Power machines. After wheezy release we will go forward with
>> transition from yaboot to grub. Your experience will be valuable for
>> further discussion about d-i issues on IBM Power machines.
>
> I will certainly try to help test it at that time.
>
> The way I am using it is what grub-install expects on IBM powerpc at
> this time.
>
> I would love to see a working example where you use FAT on an IBM powerpc,
> because I haven't found any reference to it in any of the documentation
> or anywhere else, and it has never worked when I tried it. The
> openfirmware syntax where you specify a file on a filesystem simply
> never worked on either machine I have here. Seems to work fine on
> Macs though.
>
> I will look up the bootinfo.txt though. Maybe that will provide some
> hints. Could make grub simpler to work with.
>
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