Hey all, So I've been trying to figure out how to support UEFI image builds on non-RH/Fedora systems using livecd-tools for some time now. However, historically, livecd-tools has been tied to Weldr's Lorax[1] for producing UEFI-enabled media. Specifically, the mkefiboot tool shipped in lorax. In order to support this properly on Mageia and other non-RH/Fedora systems that are compatible with livecd-tools, I've split out the mkefiboot tool into its own project as a "friendly fork": https://pagure.io/mkefiboot
In case you're wondering, I had tried to avoid doing this. I've been happy with the Lorax team's maintenance of the tool, and I preferred any path that would have let me continue to rely on them for this aspect. I'd briefly discussed with the Lorax folks about having their implementation split out into its own repository, but they were not interested in doing so. Consequently, I started looking into alternatives to resolve the situation, including methods to remove the mkefiboot dependency. Unfortunately, reimplementing the logic would not be fun or desirable. Moreover, I still want to remain broadly compatible with the Weldr team's implementation, especially as they are maintaining it for Red Hat/Fedora systems, which remains an important target to support. So, I split out the code into its own project for usage on systems that aren't Red Hat/Fedora-based. I do not have any intent to package this up for Fedora. This will be landing in Mageia Cauldron and OpenMandriva Cooker shortly, and their livecd-tools packages will no longer block producing images with UEFI support. Now, does this mean I hold any resentment or anger at the Lorax folks? Far from it! The Weldr group is doing some seriously cool things[2], and I look forward to seeing how things progress. For all intents and purpose, I regard the Weldr/Lorax team as the proper upstream. If there are relevant changes to pull in, I'll do my best to incorporate them into this code. However, this is code that doesn't generally change much, so don't be surprised if there isn't much (if any) activity on the codebase. So, does this change anything for the vast majority of livecd-tools users? Nope! But it's another brick on the road toward livecd-tools fully supporting any distribution that uses the DNF package manager. [1]: https://weldr.io/lorax/ [2]: https://weldr.io/ -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth! -- Cooker mailing-list https://www.openmandriva.org/lists
