[Gta04-owner] QtMoko v49

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 22.11.2012 um 10:23 schrieb Griera:

> Hi:
> 
> On Thu, 22 Nov 2012 09:59:00 +0100
> "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller" <hns at goldelico.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Radek,
>> 
>> Am 22.11.2012 um 09:13 schrieb Radek Polak:
>> 
>>> On Thursday, November 22, 2012 01:44:59 AM EdorFaus wrote:
>>> 
>>>> The reason this is not possible, is because one of p1..p4 is used up by
>>>> the extended partition that contains the remaining partitions (as the
>>>> primary table only has room for 4, and we have to know where to find the
>>>> rest).
>>> 
>>> Yup i have noticed it now too. So for next QtMoko release the recommended 
>>> partition scheme is:
>>> 
>>> p1 - small fat - used for gta04-init and for upgrading the NAND bootloader
>>> p2 - ext4 with rootfs for QtMoko
>>> p3 - ext3 with rootfs for SHR
>>> p4 - extended partition
>>> p5 - FAT with media
>>> p6..p9 - optinal - can be used for more distros, that use gta04-init
>> 
>> Looks very complicated to me and makes it even more difficult to burn
>> a working SD card than before.
> 
> Difficult, but only have to do once. And the advantage is that you can
> have multiple distributions on one card for testing.

Yes, but IMHO it can be simplified even more by not requiring a specific
scheme by QtMoko.

The latest bootloader supports to have up to 4 different distributions on
one SD.

Unfortunately we didn't hear any recent progress form Replicant.

> 
> Regards. Griera.
> 
> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> So this enables us to boot 2 distros on SD from the bootloader menu and 
>>> inifinitely more using gta04-init.
>>> 
>>> This looks like only sane schema to me. We cant skip the first FAT because you 
>>> would have no way to flash new bootloader then. And also gta04-init is using 
>> 
>> The FAT partition is intended to be used only on a separate SD card to flash
>> the bootloader. Since this is probably not done every day and is best done
>> through the hw-validation image (which needs 2 partitions incompatible to
>> your scheme), I would simply ignore that special case for a QtMoko SD card.
>> 
>>> it for the advanced booting to extended partitions and to chroots.
>>> 
>>> We also cant skip the p4 since we need separate partition for media.
>> 
>> The other question I have is why QtMoko needs to recommend a SHR partition?
>> 
>> Since I am a friend of "KISS", I would recommend that every distro simply
>> is expanded to any (properly) formatted *single* partition.
>> 
>> So if the SD has 4 partitions it is like 4 disks on a single physical rack.
>> And the AUX boot menu allows to choose which disk. If it only has one - fine! 
>> 
>> If the user wants to have a FAT media partition, let him create one and
>> make the distro search/find/mount it.
>> 
>> The above scheme could IMHO be recommended by gta04-init and not
>> by QtMoko since it is a third stage bootloader.
>> 
>> Just my 3ct,
>> Nikolaus
>> 
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