From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andreas Enge Subject: Re: Interest check: U-Boot bootloader support Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 16:29:39 +0100 Message-ID: <20160221152939.GB25181@solar> References: <20160220204325.GA16645@novena-choice-citizen.lan> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57129) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aXVxE-0004sb-N1 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Feb 2016 10:29:49 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aXVx9-00036Q-Kr for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Feb 2016 10:29:48 -0500 Received: from mailrelay2.public.one.com ([91.198.169.125]:47724) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aXVx9-00036K-9y for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Feb 2016 10:29:43 -0500 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20160220204325.GA16645@novena-choice-citizen.lan> 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: Jookia <166291@gmail.com> Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Hello, On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 07:43:25AM +1100, Jookia wrote: > I brought up this topic a long time ago and as since have been thinking about > this, reading the code base and getting accustomed to it. I've had the intention > of porting GuixSD to use the U-Boot bootloader, which I think can be done > without much if any changes to the user-facing configuration. that sounds like a very interesting project! Maybe it will become obsolete when grub works on ARM (so maybe you should research its status before investing too much time), but in the meantime, any effort to have GuixSD also on ARM would be very welcome. It would be nice to eat our own dog food for the Novena boards in the build farm, for instance. > I'm willing to do the refactor and programming required, but I'm sensing it's > not wanted given the investment in keeping GuixSD using GNU tools for the base > system and the fact GRUB is being ported to ARM (though this is buggy at best.) > The only thing U-Boot support brings to the table is that it works and can be > used to boot Linux on an ARM system. The only hindrance compared to GRUB is that > it doesn't support encrypted partitions, so unencrypted /boot support will need > to be added. Personally I think that unencrypted /boot is okay if all the rest is encrypted. But given my latest experience, that also does not seem to be supported so far. Andreas