[Gta04-owner] QtMoko v49

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 22.11.2012 um 13:32 schrieb Radek Polak:

> On Thursday, November 22, 2012 12:57:52 PM Neil Jerram wrote:
> 
>> I'm inclined to prefer more simplicity here.  I'd like:
>> 
>> p1: distro 1 e.g. QtMoko
>> p2: distro 2 e.g. SHR
>> p3: distro 3 e.g. Replicant
>> p4: media, maps, docs
>> NAND: bootloader, Debian/LXDE
>> 
>> Demonstrating multiple OSes is important for me as part of showing off how
>> cool the GTA04 is.  (And also when there are specific applications only
>> provided by one OS.)
> 
> With the gta04 init you can demonstrate booting between 10 oses.

That is something we need for FOSDEM. I.e. we need additional OSes :)

> 
>> For rescue I'm happy to use a separate SD card, so I don't need an initial
>> FAT partition in my main card.
> 
> Right, then you need 2 sdcards and i have to completely rewrite the gta04 init 
> code which uses config file in FAT on p1.
> 
>> If the bootloader already allows me to choose between the distros, I don't
>> think I need gta04-init anymore - Radek, does gta04-init have other
>> benefits that I'm missing?
> 
> Yes, i have written this like 3 times. E.g. copy paste from this [1]
> 
> * you can select partition that you want to reboot to from QtMoko gui

Just a new idea inspired by the boot-to-menu approach:

if fw_setenv is installed to set the "forcemenu" variable for "boot-to-menu", the
GUI could also read or modify the "bootorder" variable for "boot-to-partition x".

> * you can boot to subdir on partition (2 or more systems on one partition)
> * it can autodetect rootfs type and it can boot e.g. from btrfs
> * it can boot from extended partitions
> * you can to write scripts (1.sh and 2.sh) to boot from network, squashfs or 
> whatever

This are all nice features which may be helpful in special situations. So let's
try to keep them somehow.

> 
> i could add few more like using rootsf which is compiled as module... but it 
> seems no one now wants it.
> 
> I spent a lot of time on it and i am regullary using it. Until now it was only 
> solution for multiboot.
> 
> The uboot menu is nice but it cant alone do what i am daily using. Currently i 
> have installed qtmoko-v48, qtmoko-v49, qtmoko with qt 4.9, qtmoko on armhf 
> rootfs, SHR and media partition. It's simply not possible with uboot.
> 
> I can completely remove gta04-init from QtMoko and try to live with with just 
> 2 rootfses.

My preferred solution would be to separate them into two packages since on
one hand I see the benefits of gta04-init, but on the other not everyone needs it.

So if they can be installed separately, having gta04-init would be an extension
to the u-boot capabilities. Or to QtMoko capabilities - depending on how one
likes to see it.

> I can finish gta04-init changes to play nice with uboot. Please note that your 
> partition where qtmoko is on p1 will work in this case too, but you will loose 
> gta04-init abilities.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Radek
> 
> [1] http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/gta04-owner/2012-November/003370.html

BR,
Nikolaus