Re: Interest check: U-Boot bootloader support

[Christopher Allan Webber]

Nils Gillmann writes:

> Jookia <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Hey there,
>>
>> I brought up this topic a long time ago and as since have been thinking about
>> this, reading the code base and getting accustomed to it. I've had the 
>> intention
>> of porting GuixSD to use the U-Boot bootloader, which I think can be done
>> without much if any changes to the user-facing configuration.
>>
>> I'm willing to do the refactor and programming required, but I'm sensing it's
>> not wanted given the investment in keeping GuixSD using GNU tools for the 
>> base
>> system and the fact GRUB is being ported to ARM (though this is buggy at 
>> best.)
>> The only thing U-Boot support brings to the table is that it works and can be
>> used to boot Linux on an ARM system. The only hindrance compared to GRUB is 
>> that
>> it doesn't support encrypted partitions, so unencrypted /boot support will 
>> need
>> to be added.
>>
>> If there's no interest in having U-Boot support in Guix and upstreamed, I'd
>> rather not waste effort on writing these patches. No hard feelings!
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Jookia.
>>
>
> Similar to what I said in private, I think GuixSD has only things
> to gain from the added support. When it does arrive in GRUB, the
> workaround can be changed then.
> For now, it would be a great thing to have in GuixSD.

If we would like to also be able to deploy Guix to mobile devices, this
could really be great.  I'm sure a number of us would like to imagine a
world in which we can run Guix and more a GNU-ish type environment in
userspace on our mobile computers (how I miss my Nokia N900!)

How complex do you think it would be?

 - Chris