On 30.01.2012 03:37, Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko wrote:
> Hello, all. It was a Robert's idea of having grub-install to install 
> all available (as in: the ones which were make install'ed) ports in a 
> single grub-install w/o having to keep and run one grub-install per port.
I've tried to write such a thing. I have  met some problems in practice:
- I wanted also to integrate mactelbless in the same time. Unfortunately 
Apple uses the same pointer for both i386 and x86_64 efi. So hfs(+) 
partitions can hold only either 32-bit or 64-bit EFI binary. We could 
use "FAT Binary" to workaround this but not all macs support this.
- If one of platform specific installs fail the script doesn't install 
other platforms.
- When modifying nvram on EFI where to point it to? ESP or HFS? This is 
easy: HFS if it's a mac and ESP otherwise. Or just always ESP.
- The same problem for ieee1275. While distinguishing between mac and 
non-mac is easy (check vendor string), I don't know how to distinguish 
the ones using PreP partition and the ones using a file on a FAT fs.
I would appreciate any input both on these specific problems and the 
idea in general. Perhaps it's better to abandon it and have something 
easier like auto-detect firmware and use it as default and specify it 
manually if you need a different install.
The attached patch is just a small illustration to discuss about. It 
doesn't work
> This has an advantage of making the disk bootable in various ways 
> including ability to move it from one computer to another.
> The first problem is the files collision. To resolve this the 
> modification will be to load modules from 
> $prefix/$cpu-$platform/$modname.mod. Also 2 new script constants will 
> be defined:  $cpu and $platform.
> The problem then is that different firmwares require different kind of 
> arrangements in order to be bootable.
> i386-pc requires 55AA signature, some code in MBR and embedding zone. 
> A dummy msdos active partition is required on some systems.
> *-efi require files on ESP and some nvram entries
> i386-qemu, i386-coreboot, i386-qemu_mips and loongsoon-firmware are 
> firmware ports and we don't use grub-install for those but 
> grub-mkstandalone.
> i386-multiboot just has to be readable by whatever is a coreboot payload.
> mipsel-loongson has to be on ext2 msdos partition.
> sparc64 requires SUN partition map and the code in sector 1
> Powerpc (Apple) requires a file on HFS and nvram modification
> PowerPC (IBM) uses PreP partition
> ARC uses a special entry in the dvh partition table
> I have no idea what i386-ieee1275 requires but I guess it's a fat 
> partition with special file + nvram modification.
>
> So I propose following strategy: grub-install does the following 
> platform-specific installations:
> - if /boot/efi is on fat, copy grub to 
> /boot/efi/efi/$boot_id/grub[ia32|x64|ia64].efi (replace $boot_id and 
> grub with boot if --removable is specified) and update nvram if no 
> --removable is specified and currently running EFI version matches the 
> installed one.
> - if /boot/mac is on HFS or HFS+, create there a structure recognized 
> by both PPC and Intel macs and update nvram if architecture matches
> - If /boot/ext2 is on ext*, put mipsel-loongson and i386-multiboot there.
> - If /boot/olpc is on fat, install i386-ieee1275 there and update 
> nvram if architecture matches.
> - For every argument that is an msdos or gpt disk, install i386-pc 
> bootsector.
> - For every argument that is a sun disk, install sun bootsector.
> - For every argument that is a dvh disk, install mips-arc.
> - For every argument that is a prep partition install powerpc-ieee1275
>
> While the copying to partitions is harmless and updating nvram is done 
> only if architecture and platform matches, the disk operations may be 
> harmful. While none of the current 4 configuration usually come in 
> contradictory combinations, it's possible to purposedly create a disk 
> of multiple types and it will confuse this logic. Also if we throw 
> e.g. hppa into the mix which requires just a signature on bytes 0-1 
> and some info in 0xf4-0xff then we can't know if msdos disk is for 
> BIOS or hppa install. So we need a way to specify them more precisely. 
> PreP and ARC came in only after 1.99 so we can make them accept only 
> the new way whatever it will be. In case of old way we can easily 
> distinguish sparc64-ieee1275 and i386-pc with e.g. uname -i. I propose 
> either of:
> --device-bios=/dev/xyz --device-sun=/dev/xyz --device-arc=/dev/xyz 
> --device-prep=/dev/xyz
> Or: bios:/dev/xyz sun:/dev/xyz arc:/dev/xyz prep:/dev/xyz
>
> Also it may happen that installation of some port is undesirable. So 
> we need options
> --install-only=...
> --exclude=...
> Any further ideas?
>


-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko