Re: New discussion: ppc64 installer -- ext2 /boot partition to keep yaboot happy.
Hi all,
I'd like to provide an update on d-i/grub-installer for NewWorld Power Macs:
Sadly I didn't find the time to follow this until yesterday morning and
today in the morning, but I am now closer to a solution, I believe. :-)
## What works ##
* Installing `hfsutils` now works automatically (from `debian/postinst`)
* Formatting with HFS (only if needed, which will conserve any prior
installation of yaboot) and mounting of the NewWorld boot partition
in-target (incl. fstab entry) also works
* The OF boot script (template from [1], installed on the NewWorld boot
partition as `[...]/BootX`) that is missing in the `grub-ieee1275` deb
package is now created and installed automatically. The OF path to the
NewWorld boot partition is determined by `ofpath` (which seems to yield
a correct OF path for the used NewWorld boot partition on my Power
Macintosh G5 (11,2) instead of `ofpathname` (used by `grub-install`) and
instead of a manually compiled `grub-ofpathname` (from [2]) which both
yield non-working OF paths)
[1]:
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/grub.git/tree/grub-core/boot/powerpc/grub.chrp.in?id=446794de8da4329ea532cbee4ca877bcafd0e534
[2]:
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/grub.git/tree/util/ieee1275/grub-ofpathname.c?id=446794de8da4329ea532cbee4ca877bcafd0e534
## What doesn't yet work or isn't yet implemented ##
* Selecting/Confirming the NewWorld boot partition for GRUB
installation. I use adapted code from the d-i/yaboot-installer to
achieve this, but am struggling with the needed debconf templates (see
below). I also observe that the NewWorld boot partition can only be
guessed but not determined by d-i/partman-newworld. This is also visible
when performing a yaboot installation, as the NewWorld boot partition
has to be always confirmed by the user, although it is the only
partition in a fresh install that has the bootable flag set and it
should have been already detected and stored in
"partman-newworld/boot_partitions" (see [3]). I used the installer ISO
from [4] but dated 2017-10-10, so d-i/partman-newworld was included. It
currently works to just use the partition that is guessed by the
d-i/yaboot-installer derived code, but I'd feel safer if users would
have to confirm that choice before continuing, because the selected
partition might get formatted.
[3]:
https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/d-i/yaboot-installer.git/tree/debian/postinst?id=94cd300c98904d8c308d996239719df4b0c59d6f#n97
[4]: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/debian-9.0-ppc64-NETINST-1.iso
* Modifying the NVRAM to automatically boot GRUB. But this can be done
easily from OF itself, e.g. with `boot hd:2,BootX` with my modifications.
## Problems ##
I wasn't successful in installing my modifed grub-installer udeb with
`anna-install`, but I discovered that `udpkg` can be used to also
"install" or better "unpack" udebs, i.e. with:
```
udpkg --unpack <UDEB_FILE>
```
But as I later found out, this does not offer more functionality over
just updating the scripts `grub-installer` and `debian/postinst`
manually. I copy them to a web server and download them from the
installer environment. But this way (`udpkg --unpack [...]`), the
debconf templates in `/var/lib/cdebconf` are not updated with the new
templates from my modified udeb and hence cannot be found from code
inside `grub-installer` or `debian/postinst` - assuming they search the
files there.
So, assuming that additional templates with unique names won't hurt
other existing code, I suggest the following patch to d-i/grub-installer:
```
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index d0a4bb3..c4dfbdd 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+grub-installer (1.146) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
+
+ [ Frank Scheiner ]
+ * include new debconf templates to prepare grub-installer for support of
+ NewWorld Power Macintosh systems
+
+ -- Frank Scheiner <frank.scheiner@web.de> Thu, 19 Oct 2017 08:40:00 +0200
+
grub-installer (1.145) unstable; urgency=medium
[ Updated translations ]
diff --git a/debian/grub-installer.templates
b/debian/grub-installer.templates
index e294afb..1d8e51a 100644
--- a/debian/grub-installer.templates
+++ b/debian/grub-installer.templates
@@ -1,3 +1,39 @@
+Template: grub-installer/part_newworld
+Type: text
+# :sl4:
+ _Description: Looking for NewWorld boot partitions
+
+Template: grub-installer/nopart_newworld
+Type: error
+# :sl4:
+_Description: No NewWorld boot partition found
+ No hard disks were found which have a "NewWorld boot partition".
+ You must create a 10-Megabyte partition of type "NewWorld boot partition".
+
+Template: grub-installer/bootdev_newworld
+Type: select
+Choices: ${DEVICES}
+Default: invaliddevice
+# :sl4:
+_Description: Device for boot loader installation:
+ GRUB needs to be installed on a "NewWorld boot partition" in order for
+ your system to be bootable. Please choose the destination partition
+ from among these partitions that have the bootable flag set.
+ .
+ Warning: this will erase all data on the selected partition!
+
+Template: grub-installer/apt_install_hfsutils
+Type: text
+# :sl2:
+_Description: Installing hfsutils
+
+Template: grub-installer/apt_install_hfsutils_failed
+Type: error
+# :sl2:
+_Description: hfsutils installation failed
+ The hfsutils package failed to install into /target. Without it the
NewWorld
+ boot partition cannot be formatted.
+
Template: grub-installer/with_other_os
Type: boolean
Default: true
```
With a rebuilt grub-installer.udeb providing the necessary debconf
templates and installed during the Debian installation and its
`grub-installer` and `debian/postinst` scripts patched after udeb
installation I hope to get the described problems solved. Then we can
try to include the remaining code changes.
@Adrian:
What do you think?
Cheers,
Frank
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