Re: Debian Installer GRUB test image available

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

CC-ing GRUB upstream.

The context are the new Debian installation ISOs which are now using GRUB
instead of Yaboot for booting the installer.

The debian-cd script which generates the ISO image with xorriso can be found
here:

> https://salsa.debian.org/images-team/debian-cd/blob/master/tools/boot/buster/boot-powerpc

This script uses files from the debian-cd_info.tar.gz tarball which has
been created in debian-installer natively on powerpc with the help of
this Makefile:

> https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer/blob/master/build/config/powerpc.cfg

It was noticed that the files bootinfo.txt.in and grub.chrp.in from GRUB
upstream have one interesting difference. The grub.chrp.in script defines
a partition in the boot-script tag while the bootinfo.txt.in does not
(see below).

On 5/11/19 1:22 AM, John Ogness wrote:
> On 2019-05-05, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <address@hidden> wrote:
>> If just removing the extra colon fixes the problem *and* also does not
>> break the boot using a CD-ROM (which currently works so it should be
>> tested it still does with the change), we should fix the bug upstream.
> 
> I would like to point out that ppc/bootinfo.txt does _not_ specify
> "&partition;". So I really wonder why System/Library/CoreServices/BootX
> is specifying it.

Both these files come from GRUB upstream. If you think those need to
be corrected, I would appreciate if you send a patch upstream. Since
GRUB 2.04 is due to be released within the next weeks, it probably
makes sense to include the fix for the release.

The bootinfo.txt is generated from bootinfo.txt.in which can be found
here:

> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/grub.git/tree/grub-core/boot/powerpc/bootinfo.txt.in

The BootX comes from the grub.chrp.in located in the same folder:

> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/grub.git/tree/grub-core/boot/powerpc/grub.chrp.in

> When I get some free time I'll try to find out where &partition; came
> from and why BootX is using it.
> 
> If you find some time, I think it would be interesting if we had a
> grub-boot test image where BootX is using:
> 
> <BOOT-SCRIPT>
> boot &device;:,\System\Library\CoreServices\grub.elf
> </BOOT-SCRIPT>
> 
> I suspect Apple users would then be able to "properly" boot from USB
> with:
> 
> boot usb0/disk:,\\:tbxi

Well, I can do a test build if you like with the file manually edited.

If that fixes the USB issue, we can just send a patch to GRUB upstream
to fix the issue just before the release.

Adrian


-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - address@hidden
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - address@hidden
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