Re: Better arm64 support
On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 01:05:34PM +0100, Wookey wrote:
> > > Someone asked me for a VM image recently, and I discovered we now
> > > make some available at: https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/
> >
> > There's new work in progress at: https://image-finder.debian.net/ That page
> > includes some info on the different image types, but doesn't always have up to
> > date data yet.
>
> OK. That's useful. Boggling long list of AWS images!
> Perhaps that should be linked from /debian-cloud-images/ so people could find it.
> (where does the content for that page live?)
It should be linked from somewhere more prominent when it's actually
usable. It is not currently. Information on that site is not current
and shouldn't be relied on to be useful today.
So many images are listed for AWS because it (currently) loads every
daily image of every version we build for, as well as every "release"
ami, in all regions. It then relies on client-side filtering to limit
the view to what's been asked for. That technique is already showing
performance issues, and will only get worse. This is evidence of its
WIP status.
> > > The 'genericcloud' and 'nocloud' images are amd64 only. Maybe they
> > > don't make sense for arm64 - what are they for?
> >
> > generic is most flexible, genericcloud has physical hardware drivers disabled,
> > and nocloud is as minimal as possible. The tools, configs, and docs are in
> > this repo: https://salsa.debian.org/cloud-team/debian-cloud-images/
>
> OK. Sounds like arm64 should be enabled for these too. I'll have a look.
What do you mean by "enabled"? "generic" arm64 images are available today at e.g.
https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/sid/daily/20200427-245/ and
https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/buster/20200425-243/, both of
which are two clicks from https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/
> > > I don't know if there are other services that it would make sense to
> > > support, e.g packet provide arm64 online compute. https://www.packet.com
> > > They already provide debian 8,9,10 options, apparently built as docker
> > > images: https://github.com/packethost/packet-images
> >
> > I haven't heard that anyone on the team uses packet - but if someone wanted to
> > extend support for their platform, I imagine we'd accept it.
>
> I've made contact with them to ask about what specific support is
> needed. It seems like a generic image should work, but there are some
> API support tools we could usefully add. I'll have a go with this and
> make changes to /debian-cloud-images/ if appropriate.
Is packet based on OpenStack? If so, then yes, the generic images
should work there.
> > > A kosher debian image might be a good idea, but then maybe the generic
> > > ones work already? I just failed to find any info on whether anything
> > > special is needed in their images.
> >
> > The generic image should have a good shot at working, though it likely contains
> > many drivers that won't be useful.
>
> Right. And maybe generic cloud works.
Note that the arm64 cloud kernel is available in bullseye and sid, but
not buster. Arm64 buster images just use the regular ("generic") arm64
kernel. It's not necessarily the goal of the cloud kernel to support
every cloud infrastructure in existence, but if there are missing
drivers that prevent it from doing so, we can consider enabling them.
noah
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