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

[Ian Campbell]

On Sun, 2014-04-27 at 20:32 +0200, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> 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.

What on earth are you on about? Debian installer has absolutely no
requirement for uImage. uImages purely a per-platform requirement based
on the feature set of the u-boot on the system.

>   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.

Where did anyone in this thread talk about putting d-i onto an SD card?

>  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.

Are you referring to me here? I assure you that I am quite familiar with
debian installer and am not at all in the habits of using pre-prepared
images.

>  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.

Utter rubbish.

>  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.

FEL is a good idea for something to support, but it is completely
unrelated to uImage AFAICT.

Ian.