Public bug reported:
Recently, BIOS vendors have been starting to implement a 'boot from SD
card' feature, much like they have added 'boot from USB memory stick'
some years ago.
The only SD-card host controller that I've seen this implemented for is
SDHCI compliant host controllers.
While this is a nice feature to support, for most systems it is just a
gimmick and not something neccessarry.
However, there are hand-held devices such as netbooks in the pipeline
which do not have any other mass storage device. No hard disk and no
IDE-attached flash disk or the like. They just have one (more likely two
or more) SD card slots and you install and store not only your data but
the entire operating system on that SD card.
Furthermore, there are products like Samsung moviNAND which are
basically a SDcard in a BGA package that can be soldered onto a PCB. So
from a protocol and software point of view it is a SD card, but it is
mechanically soldered onto the board. Such device have gained some
popularity in ARM-based designs, but we'll likely see them in the x86
world, too.
I have tested to install "Ubuntu Intrepid alpha 5 desktop i386" and it
did not work
Bootloader requirements
There are no specific requirements on the bootloader, since BIOS
abstracts all low-level details about how to talk to the SD card
(controller) in the usual way through the BIOS ABI.
However, the program that installs the actuall bootloader record (grub-
install, grub-installer, the 'lilo' commandline program) has to
understand that /dev/mmcblk* is a valid block device and be able to
discover the mapping between /dev/mmcblk* and the BIOS device number.
For grub (grub1, the old version), see
* http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?24181
* http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/download.php?file_id=16416
[edit]
Installer requirements
The distribution installation initrd needs to
1. include and auto-load the sdhc.ko and sdhci_pci.ko kernel modules
2. create the /dev/mmcblk* device nodes as per udev/hotplug events
The actual distribution installation program needs to
1. recognize /dev/mmcblk* as block devices that can be used as target device
2. use a grub-install or similar program that can discover the bios drive
number to /dev/mmcblk* device name mapping
You can find more information at
http://wiki.gpl-devices.org/wiki/Installing_Linux_on_booting_SD_card
** Affects: ubuntu
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
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Ubunto doesn't install on bootable SD-card
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/268863
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