[arch-releng] My archiso TODO/ideas (_draft_)

[Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi]

On 08/11/2011 12:47 PM, KESHAV P.R. wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 04:54, Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi
> <vmlinuz386 at yahoo.com.ar>  wrote:
>> On 08/10/2011 02:18 AM, Pierre Schmitz wrote:
>>> On Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:43:09 -0300, Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi wrote:
>>>> * UEFI boot support (FS#20419)
>>>> At some time I want to support UEFI boot. But I do not have any real
>>>> hardware to test it. Neither UEFI firmware for qemu (two versions
>>>> tested) or virtualbox works fine, testing with some UEFI compatible
>>>> mediums without happy results.
> What was the exact problem with QEMU and VBox UEFI firmware? Both use
> Tianocore UDK/EDK2 OVMF firmware
> https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=OVMF_FAQ
> .
Hello,

Problem is that is slow in all steps: POST, loading kernel+initramfs, 
booting kernel (tested some time ago, one or two months, maybe these 
things changed recently), and finally crash or nothing. Sometimes 
virtualbox and qemu crash, etc.

Mediums tested (what I remember): Fedora 15, Archboot  2011.06, 
Scientific Linux 6.0.

>>> No need to hurry here. Afaik UEFI and linux (or UEFI in general) has
>>> quite some problems and regressions over the default BIOS boot. I have
>>> such hardware, but what the bug report does not mention is that it works
>>> pretty fine without any downsides without it.
> Not with Linux 3.0 . Might want ot read http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/ .
OK, I will test with it. Yes these are the articles that I read :)
>
>> I read some weeks ago that some UEFI implementations always/only read a
>> "default" location in UEFI partitions, assuming that the only OS that will
>> be used is Windows, breaking the "ecosystem" under /EFI directory.
> The location you are btalking about is
> <UEFI_SYSTEM_PARTITION>/efi/boot/bootx64.efi . Windows by default
> copies<UEFI_SYSTEM_PARTITION>/efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi to
> bootx64.efi incase the UEFI NVRAM entry fails to boot . I currently
> have grub2 as the bootx64.efi file and added a chainloading entry for
> bootmgfw.efi ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting#Chainloading%20Windows%20x86_64%20UEFI-GPT
> ) .
Yes, and also (Windows) put a fallback entry in the default location. So 
if the UEFI implementation does not set variables correctly., there is 
no other choices on that systems. :(
> You can have a look at Archboot iso for ideas on implementing UEFI
> support. For generating iso, you need to use xorriso (from libisoburn)
> (not cdrkit mkisofs). But implementing bootloader support in the aif
> script is a much bigger task. I can help you with implementing UEFI
> support in archiso but right now I am too busy to hack on aif .
Or using original cdrecord mkisofs. The cdrkit is a museum piece! ;)
> For UEFI firmware chainloaded from BIOS (real hardware testing)
> checkout www.rodsbooks.com/bios2uefi/index.html .

Cool! Anyway when I talk about real hardware I also talk about what 
vendors are doing bad when implementing things (Like ACPI issues, many 
ACPI are Windows friendly only).
>
> Regards.

Many many thanks!

>
> Keshav
>


-- 
Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi
\cos^2\alpha + \sin^2\alpha = 1