ubuntu-powerpc team mailing list archive

[Ben Collins <benmcollins13@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 20, 2012, at 7:44 AM, Colin Watson <cjwatson@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 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?

I had it as installer in our firmware, but I can change that if need be.

>> 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?

You're correct, that was a typo.

>> 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.

I'll check into this. Grub being able to detect CPU subflavour would be a nice feature all around.

>> 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?

Thanks, I'll check this out.

>> 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]

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