Re: powerpc d-i daily builds reactivated, use 2.6.12 kernels, including 64bit kernels, miboot floppies dropped for now.

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Sat, Aug 20, 2005 at 03:27:36AM -0400, Rick Thomas wrote:
> 
> On Aug 19, 2005, at 9:35 AM, Sven Luther wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, Aug 19, 2005 at 05:00:44AM -0300, Rog?rio Brito wrote:
> >>On Aug 18 2005, Sven Luther wrote:
> >>>I was forced to disable the floppy builds for now, since they failed 
> >>>to
> >>>build, and the 2.6.12 kernels are 200K too big anyway for miboot
> >>>floppies, we need to find out how to make them smaller, and solve the
> >>>non-freeness of miboot for the etch release.
> >>
> >>Humm, this is indeed a problem. :-( The non-freeness of miboot is a
> >>secondary problem in face of not having a way to install the operating
> >>system on the box. :-(
> >
> >The kernel don't fit anyway, and you can always use the sarge miboot 
> >floppies,
> >or older daily builds and then upgrade, or use bootx with the normal 
> >installation,
> >or even boot the .cofg kernel from OF directly.
> 
> Hmmm...
> 
> Would it be possible to build a boot floppy using a fixed-config 
> stripped-down version of (say) the 2.4 kernel, with just enough 

No, there will be no more 2.4 powerpc kernel in etch, people needing it
absolutely will be able to use the sarge installer and upgrade for now.

The plan is that in the year or so upto the etch release, we will trim down
the 2.6 kernel to miboot-size, free miboot or find a better solution, and fix
the miboot+2.6 worked once in oldenbourg 2004 and never since problem.

Removing the legacy stuff will only encourage us to work on the real fix :)

> features configured to get the "real" (e.g. 2.6.xxx) kernel off  one 
> of: CD, network, hard-disk, whatever media.  It asks the user where the 
> "real" kernel is, then retrieves it, loads it, and passes control to 
> it.  As proof of concept, it could use the non-free miboot until a free 
> version becomes available.

Well, the sarge 2.4 miboot floppies already installs a 2.6 kernel (or should),
and if what you are hinting at is on-the-fly takeover of kernels, this is not
possible (yet :).

> NewWorld Macs can boot off of CDs, so these boot floppies are only 
> necessary for OldWorld PowerMacs, which, being out of production, have 
> a fixed unchanging set of devices.  So the "initial boot" kernel can be 
> built with a fixed minimal unchanging configuration.  Once a working 
> config is constructed, there will never be any need to update it.

Well, we already build most stuff as modules, so we would just need the
oldworld floppy driver builtin to load the initrd, and that is it. A good
candidate for modularisation is the apple ide driver, which cannot be
modularized right now, and a couple of other stuff, feel free to experiment
with it.

Now, there is also talk of a quikc-that-supports-floppies, so it would solve
the miboot-is-non-free problem, and maybe even be able to load the initrd
itself, so we would be able to modularize the floppy driver even. Or maybe
even a quik-that-supports-cdrom would be even cooler :)

> What am I missing?

I guess we just need someone to do the work, as usual, i have not the time
right now, nor in the forseable future, neither has h0lger, so we need fresh
blood with interest to work on the etch oldworld boot-floppies.

Friendly,

Sven Luther