[Arm-netbook] Support for sunxi-based ARM systems in d-i

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 8:14 PM, Karsten Merker <merker at debian.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 07:35:35AM +0100, Ian Campbell wrote:
>> On Sat, 2014-04-26 at 23:25 +0200, Karsten Merker wrote:
>
>> No uImage is required for sunxi,

 no uImage is required for sunxi but a uImage is required for *debian
installer*.  that is after all the whole point of the exercise.  ok,
sure you can put debian-installer onto an SD card directly but then
you will not be able to install the OS onto the SD card because debian
installer will be using it.

 karsten it would seem that you are being mis-advised by people not
familiar with debian installer, who think that booting off of
pre-prepared images is quotes normal quotes.

 although it would in some limited cases be useful to boot debian
installer without a uImage, it would not be the most helpful thing to
the most people.

 may i respectfully suggest that you speak to henrik nordstrom (hno) -
you can find him on #linux-sunxi - and get a uImage up and running
that may be loaded over the USB-FEL.  henrik and others such as myself
have got USB-FEL up and running for a number of A10 and A20 devices:
the advantage of boot-installing a device from USB-FEL is that it is
simple to do: just plug in to a Micro-USB, load the 1st stage
bootloader directly into RAM, load the kernel directly into RAM, load
the debian installer uImage directly into RAM, then hit the execute
command.  instantly you have all the hardware available on which to
install a *clean* OS.

l.