From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jookia <166291@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Guix on Mobile (Was: Interest check: U-Boot bootloader support) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2016 06:19:27 +1100 Message-ID: <20160222191927.GA4900@novena-choice-citizen.lan> References: <20160220204325.GA16645@novena-choice-citizen.lan> <87vb5giupe.fsf@grrlz.net> <87povo8w0k.fsf@dustycloud.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50008) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from <166291@gmail.com>) id 1aXw3V-00058C-4X for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Feb 2016 14:22:02 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from <166291@gmail.com>) id 1aXw3R-0000Ny-RD for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Feb 2016 14:22:01 -0500 Received: from mail-wm0-x230.google.com ([2a00:1450:400c:c09::230]:36971) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from <166291@gmail.com>) id 1aXw3R-0000Nr-Jy for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Feb 2016 14:21:57 -0500 Received: by mail-wm0-x230.google.com with SMTP id g62so178740383wme.0 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 2016 11:21:57 -0800 (PST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87povo8w0k.fsf@dustycloud.org> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Christopher Allan Webber Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 10:01:15AM -0800, Christopher Allan Webber wrote: > If we would like to also be able to deploy Guix to mobile devices, this > could really be great. I'm sure a number of us would like to imagine a > world in which we can run Guix and more a GNU-ish type environment in > userspace on our mobile computers (how I miss my Nokia N900!) > > How complex do you think it would be? On the Neo900 it might be easy to do, but given most phones don't have a keyboard it'd require another bootloader than U-boot or GRUB. Which is okay, I've been thinking about this anyway and plan to make one eventually. Basically the bootloader would just be Linux to do some hardware init (touch screen, etc) then you'd select which Guix generation to load and it'd get kexec'd. This would also allow full disk encryption if the bootloader were on a different chip to root. I've toyed with the idea of such a bootloader ('GuixBoot') for a bit in my head and seen some interest for it. It'd solve a lot of issues of my own even on systems with GRUB and U-Boot as Linux tends to initialize hardware better than them (neither U-Boot nor Libreboot like either of the EDID values of my screen!) and would probably allow faster bootup given you're not initializing the hardware twice. The biggest problem with this would be size, a typical kernel and initrd is around 12 megabytes together while a 'good' flash chip is probably 8 megabytes, though I know some Libreboot machines have 4 megabytes. I also don't know of any open hardware boards that have flash chips for loading kernels or bootloaders, so perhaps it isn't an issue if we put this as an unencrypted /boot. I solve this dilemma on my machine but using a fully encrypted SSD coupled with an unencrypted /boot on an SD card. Perhaps booting off a USB key in general would be a better habit to get in to, which works on all machines and allows full disk encryption and allows me to somewhat verify my machine hasn't been tampered with. Anyways, I plan to try the idea sometime once I have a Guix system setup. If I can get it small enough (I have no knowledge how, don't hold your breath) it'd be useful as a payload in Libreboot I've heard. > - Chris Jookia.