Re: Interest check: U-Boot bootloader support

[Nils Gillmann]

Christopher Allan Webber <address@hidden> writes:

> 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

I think mobile support is a feature one could add later.. it
would be one more point I could add to the list of Guix analysis
for EDN as a possible tails-like operating system.
If one could ship the "GNUnet system" on mobile, and have
platforms supporting it, that would be good. Although it sounds
too complex for one person to do.
In practice this would also mean, if we can live with a small
amount of blobs, we could have a basis for a theroretical
GuixMobile, with more trust and freedom than todays appstores.

-- 
ng