[fedora-arm] Possible File Formats for a Fedora ARM release

[Brendan Conoboy]

On 02/02/2012 02:41 PM, Gordan Bobic wrote:
> Not going to happen, sadly. The rootfs is common across all the devices
> (armv5tel for soft-float, armv7hl for hard-float).

Hold up, there's a middle ground that we can shoot for here, even prior 
to everybody getting onboard with FDT.

> Kernels are SoC specific. Not quite as narrowly specialized as device
> specific, but it's still not going to be a one-size-fits all, at least
> not any time soon (probably years).

What it really comes down to is getting the bootloader (typically uboot) 
to load a kernel and initramfs.  Maybe it's an OMAP or a Tegra kernel, 
maybe it's Kirkwood or Highbank or Armada or or or... but you can 
squeeze all that onto one tarball.

The support grid is really just 2x2: You're either armv5tel or armv7hl. 
  You either need a separate partition for bootloader bits (omap, etc 
scenario) or you don't (tegra scenario).  Putting together tarball that 
has everything a person needs for most systems is doable.  A couple 
paragraphs per board type for how to get the specific board type is all 
it will take in the way of specialized documentation.  In most cases it 
will simply be a matter of a couple setenv commands.

-- 
Brendan Conoboy / Red Hat, Inc. / blc at redhat.com