Hi David,
Please let me know if you don’t want to be bothered about this. Problem
is there’s exciting stuff in this patch series and I’d probably have a
few questions for you if you want.
David Craven <da...@craven.ch> skribis:
> These patches make changes to the bootloader API and will break
> operating-system's
> and some scripts (--no-grub is renamed to --no-bootloader).
>
> I would like some feedback on the API and also ideas on how to handle API
> changes
> with minimal discomfort to our users.
>
> The most interesting commit is 8a01985d7a936809102b10d494dc2286b3f8c6f2 which
> defines
> a <bootloader-configuration> record. extlinux-configuration,
> grub-configuration and
> syslinux-configuration are designed as transformation passes on a
> bootloader-configuration
> record. The idea is that someone that wants to add support for a new
> bootloader can
> use
>
> (bootloader (bootloader-configuration
> ...))
>
> and users that want to use a supported bootloader can configure it like this
>
> (bootloader (grub-configuration
> (bootloader-configuration
> (device "/dev/sda1"))))
Perhaps this could be:
(bootloader-configuration
(type grub-bootloader)
(device "/dev/sda1"))
That way, people would always write ‘bootloader-configuration’
regardless of the bootloader being used, which sounds simpler.
We could have this compatibility macro:
(define-syntax-rule (grub-configuration fields ...)
(bootloader-configuration
(type grub-bootloader)
fields ...))
> another important API change is that an operating-system does not need to set
> the bootloader when it is only intended to run through guix system vm or on
> an embedded system that has an extlinux compatible bootloader in ROM.
>
> Things that don't work yet:
> * system tests are broken due to API changes
> * grub-efi needs an installation procedure and the vm code needs
> support for alternative firmware like ovmf, gpt partition table
> and EFI boot partition.
> * The syslinux and grub bootloader configurations still require
> guix/scripts/system.scm to handle the new API on init and reconfigure
> and requires extensive testing on real hardware.
> * No automated system tests yet.
OK.
I’ll look more closely at the rest. I’m glad Danny already applied the
non-controversial patches!
Thanks,
Ludo’.
