On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 11:06:08PM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote: > Aurelien Jarno, le Sun 12 Apr 2015 22:08:44 +0200, a écrit : > > On 2015-04-12 20:22, Samuel Thibault wrote: > > > Since petitboot runs inside a running linux kernel, that only shifts the > > > problem of booting that linux kernel :) > > > > Petitboot is the default bootloader on this machine when configured to > > run Linux. It's the interface the user see when powering up the machine. > > Uh. Interesting :D > > Thanks, > Samuel Sorry for jumping in. I would like the chance to complement and clarify some things about ppc64el platform. As Aurelien pointed out, when used in OPAL mode, the system will boot a system running petitboot, which is capable of netboot, booting from disk, and install media. So, will it boot from USB media? Yes. When it comes to IBM latest servers, that are three options for platforms: OPAL (powernv in Linux), as PowerKVM guest, and PowerVM LPAR (both pseries platform in Linux). OPAL has petitboot built-in, PowerKVM uses SLOF and PowerVM uses IBM Open Firmware. The three are capable of booting from optical media, USB, and netboot. With the exception of KVM guests, when a supported graphical card is used, graphical installation should be an option as well. For KVM guests, there is offb, which should work with VNC. Should we enable graphical installation in the media? Or is just netboot images missing graphical support on d-i? One caveat: I may be mistaken on the current state of support for USB and netboot on SLOF. But considering it's a KVM guest using qemu, there is much more flexibility, if things are downloaded on the host. I would say that is one of the things that we should document on the installation-guide. Is that right? As for wireless network adapters, the systems don't ship with any, and I haven't heard of any testing with any drivers. Nonetheless, those systems support PCI 3.0 and USB 3.0, so there is no reason those adapters shouldn't work, giving enough testing and fixes. But I would leave that out. As for other systems supporting ppc64el, OpenPower members have been releasing new systems using Power8 and supporting little-endian from the start. As already mentioned, older IBM systems could be capable as well, but I wouldn't say that is supported. As for chips from Freescale, I can't tell much. For 64-bit capable old Macs, I suppose firmware could be a problem. For those systems, adopting ppc64 (BE) would offer an option. Why 64-bit? Well, the same answer applies for all platforms. Address space. I suppose some people cannot even run web browsers these days without 64-bit :-). Of course, that has some disadvantages, like the memory footprint because of pointers, that x32 tries to address. Regards. Cascardo.
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