ubuntu-powerpc team mailing list archive

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 04:52:30PM -0500, Ben Collins wrote:
> Colin, I've done the majority of the related work for selecting the
> right image for e500* machines. What isn't done is the livefs and ISO
> stuff.
> 
> The livefs obviously needs the extra kernels added (powerpc-e500 and
> powerpc-e500mc...did I do that already?).

You did, in live-build 3.0~a57-1ubuntu5.

> Also, the ISO image needs these installed as:
> 
> /installer/e500/{vmlinux,initrd.img}
> /installer/e500mc/{vmlinux,initrd.img}

I think this should be /install/..., for consistency with other
subarchitectures?

> Any extra command line options required (you only get one choice)
> should be added in one line to:
> 
> /installer/{e500,e500mc}/append
> 
> Alternatively (I haven't tested this yet, but it should work) the
> images could be placed arbitrarily if a /boot/grub.cfg existed on the
> ISO.

Is this a typo for /boot/grub/grub.cfg, which would be more
conventional?

> This would allow for an arbitrary number of entries with differing
> command line options and descriptive text for each. I could even
> update our firmware to look at /boot/grub.cfg.{e500,e500mc} if you
> think that makes more sense; would alleviate the problem of both e500
> and e500mc being in the same cfg and forcing the user to know what
> their CPU is (but I'm guessing some grub.cfg foo could detect this and
> only show one sub-menu or the other).

In principle.  You might need to implement a new GRUB command (i.e. in
C) for the purpose.

> Note that either of these would work on bare-metal and QEmu-KVM booted
> situations and the kernels can be reused for net booting if the user
> needed that.
> 
> I prefer the grub scenario since it is more robust.

I do too.

I've pushed this a little further up the hill, insofar as time allowed
before the end of the year.  debian-installer now emits bare e500 and
e500mc images (just kernel and initrd); I've modified debian-cd to
include these on the ISO images; and I've respun the powerpc server
image (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/daily/current/) so that
you can see the effect of this.

I have not yet dealt with grub.cfg, as I'm not sure of proper contents.
Perhaps you could help with this?

> If you would prefer I do this work, please point me to proper places
> to edit. The ubuntu-cdimage repo is intimidatingly huge.

The relevant debian-cd branch is lp:~ubuntu-cdimage/debian-cd/ubuntu,
and the file you probably need to edit is
tools/boot/raring/boot-powerpc.

Thanks,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@xxxxxxxxxx]