Bug#685988: please provide arch-all package with zipl firmware
Package: s390-tools
Version: 1.16.0-1
Severity: normal
qemu-system-s390x - emulator of s390 hardware which is part of qemu-system
package - needs zipl firmware in order to boot a (virtual) s390(x) system.
This firmware can be built from s390-tools source. Qemu-system works on
any architecture which is supported by Debian, so such a package need to
be Architecture: all, just like bios/firmware images for other architectues (*).
This is #684909 on qemu side.
Also, #685134 introduces virtio support for zipl firmware. Booting from
virtio devices (native devices for qemu) is introduced there, but it is
not part of upstream s390-tools as distributed by IBM, because of some
licensing issues (IBM only takes code written internally, while this
support is written by an independent person; but IBM itself isn't interested
to develop virtio support for s390-tools at this stage). This virtio
support might be very handy for qemu.
(*) There were several discussions in various places about whenever it
is a good idea to make these packages Arch:all, since in fact they're
arch-dependent. But due to various issue, having them Arch:all is the
only workable solution.
Thanks,
/mjt
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