[arch-general] [arch-dev-public] Boot loaders in core/base

[Matthew Gyurgyik]

On 11/20/2010 05:27 AM, Pierre Schmitz wrote:
> Hi,
>
> while reviewing the core rebuild list I wondered if we should think
> about chaining our default boot loader. Note: that wont affect existing
> setups and people will still be able to use whatever they like.
>
> ATM. we have grub1 in core/base and install that by default. The
> problem is that this project is virtually dead for a long time now and
> also not available on x86_64. Technically it has to be in the multilib
> repo.
>
> Grub2 is currently in extra. Upstream development is still in flux.
> Imho its quite heavy and complex.
>
> An alternative successor would be extlinux from the syslinux package.
> It's very simple, easy to configure, actively maintained and reliable.
> Sure, it only supports booting from ext* and btrfs afaik but to be
> honest, if you use any other FS you should have a separate /boot even
> when using grub.
>
> Summing up my suggestion for some time in the future would be:
> * move extlinux/syslinux to core/base
> * move grub1 to extra/multilib and remove it from base group
> * keep grub2 in extra
> * maybe also move lilo to extra
> * of course keep all of them on the install cd
>
> What do you think about this? At some point it might not be
> sane/possible to keep grub1 as our default boot loader.
>
> Greetings,
>
> Pierre
>
I was thinking about how we could integrate extlinux into the installer 
and have suggested creating an additional package called extlinux. This 
package would would include an example config and a few *.c32 file 
needed to make the config work.

As a result, the installer would just have to modify the example config 
and run extlinux --install /boot/syslinux. As an added bonus, it makes 
things easier for the end user (/boot/syslinux doesn't need to be 
created and *.c32 files don't need to be copied to /boot/syslinux).

I have all the juicy details and an explanation here: 
https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/21766

~pyther