Re: [PATCH v2] arm64: Allow packing uncompressed images into distro packages

Marc Zyngier
2024-10-16T16:44:57Z

Hi Bjorn,

On Wed, 11 Sep 2024 03:53:16 +0100,
Bjorn Andersson <andersson@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> From: Bjorn Andersson <quic_bjorande@quicinc.com>
>
> The distro packages (deb-pkg, pacman-pkg, rpm-pkg) are generated using
> the compressed kernel image, which means that the kernel once installed
> can not be booted with systemd-boot.

Are you sure? I just installed a guest with systemd-boot
(252.30-1~deb12u, as shipped in Debian), and it is perfectly able to
boot a compressed kernel.

>
> This differs from the packages generated by the distros themselves,
> which uses the uncompressed image.
>
> Use the newly introduced CONFIG_COMPRESSED_INSTALL option to allow
> selection of which version of the kernel image should be packaged into
> the distro packages.

I'm normally building kernels as Debian packages, without any of
CONFIG_EFI_ZBOOT or CONFIG_COMPRESSED_INSTALL.

As a result, the installed kernel image of a Debian package shoots up
from ~8M to an impressive 25M, since we're not picking the compressed
image anymore. Storage may be cheap, but still.

I really don't think CONFIG_COMPRESSED_INSTALL should change the
existing behaviours, and a new option would be better suited to enable
this new setup if deemed necessary.

Thanks,

M.

--
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.