Bug#776317: Jessie RC1 amd64 mini image missing efi bootloader
Hi, Ian Campbell: Thank you (again?) for all the excellent info you've provided here and in your followups. I hope this does not mean that enough is said on that topic. It seems (IMHO only) that mini.iso is mostly useful for d-i developers to dev test the netboot installer images without needing to rebuild the full netinst images I am currently preparing a conclusion post to this bug, where i emphasize that mini.iso is friendly to partition editors (when on USB stick or alike). The amd64-netinst images are crammed with baits for BIOS and EFI. They violate about any specs and best practice about partitioning. So if the firmware partition on hard-disk-like media has its use cases, then it seems worthwhile to develop a layout for EFI bootability which preserves the feature of mini.iso to look like a sanely partitioned device. But I think most end users would be better off being directed to the proper netinst images instead, I agree as long as only the bootability of the ISO is of interest. An end user trying to edit the partitioning of amd64-netinst will probably get a rough ride. I dimly remember that firmware partitions were used to allow the user to combine a free Debian with proprietary drivers. Something like in https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch06s04.html.en At some point it seems like improving mini.iso more for end users would simply be duplicating effort with the CD team. It depends on how large the potential audience for the firmware issue is, and how much the booting OS of mini.iso can make use of the FAT filesystem and its content. The partition was not added just for fun, i guess. Are there traces inside the booting Debian that it looks for such a partition and reads files from it ? Above document says: debian-installer only prompts for firmware needed by kernel modules loaded during the installation. and Any firmware loaded during the installation will be copied automatically to the installed system. - Ok, back to my work in libisofs to enable the production of standard-compliant GPT together with isohybrid and appended partitions. When it is done, i will propose three alternatives: MBR based, GPT based, crammed netinst plus firmware partition. Only the MBR based one can be achieved by released xorriso. Have a nice day :) Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-cd-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/2869154389342951...@scdbackup.webframe.org
Bug#776317: Jessie RC1 amd64 mini image missing efi bootloader
On Tue, 2015-01-27 at 17:03 +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote: Thank you (again?) for all the excellent info you've provided here and in your followups. I did not guess too bad with my repacking experiment. But this does not explain how the empty FAT partition got to the end of mini.iso I see in http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/d-i/debian-installer.git/tree/build/config/x86.cfg#n347 geniso_hybrid_plus_firmware_partition $(TEMP_MINIISO) So obviously the appended partition was not intended for EFI but for additional firmware. Ah yes, that would seem to make sense. Given that I don't really understand how this additional firmware partition stuff is supposed to fit together (i.e. what impact changing its partition number or adding another VFAT partition etc would have on the code which finds/loads from it) I'm very reluctant to be the one to suggest that we should change things here for Jessie given we've had the beta and are frozen etc. Perhaps we should park this until Stretch? (Kibi, any thoughts on that?) It's not really clear to me who the intended audience of these mini.iso's are: It seems (IMHO only) that mini.iso is mostly useful for d-i developers to dev test the netboot installer images without needing to rebuild the full netinst images (so both legacy and EFI capabilities are useful there). But I think most end users would be better off being directed to the proper netinst images instead, they are more polished and better tested etc (since they share code with the larger ISO images and what have you). At some point it seems like improving mini.iso more for end users would simply be duplicating effort with the CD team. Ian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-cd-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/1422785352.15317.20.ca...@debian.org
Bug#776317: Jessie RC1 amd64 mini image missing efi bootloader
On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 05:59:26PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote: Hi, i just realize that the xorriso run in http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/d-i/debian-installer.git/tree/build/config/x86.cfg does not produce an isohybrid image. Therefore one currently cannot simply omit the isohybrid run in geniso_hybrid_plus_firmware_partition. Option -isohybrid-mbr is a precondition for -isohybrid-gpt-basdat which marks the EFI boot image in MBR and GPT. It needs the disk path to the file isohdpfx.bin in the local SYSLINUX installation (from where file isolinux.bin stems). debian-cd for debian-7*-amd64.iso does: -isohybrid-mbr syslinux/usr/lib/syslinux/isohdpfx.bin (Don't ask me where its pwd is at that moment.) It's in a directory just above the root of the temporary CD tree - see http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/debian-cd/debian-cd.git/tree/tools/boot/jessie/boot-x86 for context. Just before that point, we've extracted a copy of the syslinux package(s) needed to get all the files we need from them. ... Add an argument to util/geniso_hybrid_plus_firmware_partition + efi_fat=$2 and in the case [ $(GRUB_EFI) = y ] hand it down from build/config/x86.cfg : if [ $(GRUB_EFI) = y ]; then \ xorriso -as mkisofs ... ; \ +geniso_hybrid_plus_firmware_partition $(TEMP_MINIISO) \ $(TEMP_CD_TREE)/boot/grub/efi.img ; \ else \ xorriso -as mkisofs ... ; \ +geniso_hybrid_plus_firmware_partition $(TEMP_MINIISO) ; \ fi - geniso_hybrid_plus_firmware_partition $(TEMP_MINIISO) (Why those backslashes and semicolons in config/x86.cfg, btw ?) It's the syntax for mtools to work on the FAT images, that's all. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com Armed with Valor: Centurion represents quality of Discipline, Honor, Integrity and Loyalty. Now you don't have to be a Caesar to concord the digital world while feeling safe and proud. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-cd-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150201153323.gs8...@einval.com
Re: arm64 and isohybrid
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 06:59:44PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote: Hi, *grin* You're not selling this very much... :-) Do you complain about losing an item from your todo list ? Certainly not. :-) How about you replace it by the intent to fix bug 776317: amd64 mini.iso : BIOS or EFI boot from CD or USB stick, with the complication to keep the firmware partition digestible for partition editors. I am preparing a conclusion post with lengthy considerations, xorriso novelties, and proposals. An excellent candidate for being way behind with deciding and implementing it. (It will pass through this list. Bystanders be warned.) OK! I spoke briefly to Ian Campbell about this last night (we're both at FOSDEM) and I see he's responded in that bug# too... -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com Further comment on how I feel about IBM will appear once I've worked out whether they're being malicious or incompetent. Capital letters are forecast. Matthew Garrett, http://www.livejournal.com/users/mjg59/30675.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-cd-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150201152334.gp8...@einval.com
Bug#776317: Jessie RC1 amd64 mini image missing efi bootloader
On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 03:57:24PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote: Hi, Jack Truong wrote: I have copied the contents of efi.img to the FAT partition and it does boot on my EFI firmware now. Thank you! So your EFI indeed hopped on that partition. Possibly only because it sees no other indication where to start the boot process. I now wonder whether the MBR partition 2 is actually intended as EFI System Partition. The partition type 0x01 generally indicates a FAT12 filesystem. An EFI partition should have type 0xef. Regrettably there is no file /.disk/mkisofs in the ISO which tells the used xorriso -as mkisofs options. Yup. The *netboot* images are produced directly in the debian-installer build, which doesn't have such things. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com This dress doesn't reverse. -- Alden Spiess -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-cd-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150201152642.gr8...@einval.com
