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

[Dennis Gilmore]

El Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:22:06 -0500
Jonathan Chiappetta <jchiappetta at learn.senecac.on.ca> escribió:
> I would like to discuss (or learn about previous discussions)
> regarding the file format for future possible fedora-arm releases. I
> believe we should have one file which should provide all the data
> necessary to make a final bootable fedora-arm device. 
> 
> Are there any suggestions on how the file should be laid out? For
> example: 
> 
> Fedora-20-ARMv5-Guru.tgz = { ARMv5.guru.boot.tgz ,
> Fedora-20-ARM.root.tgz } Fedora-20-ARMv5-Panda.tgz =
> { ARMv5.panda.boot.tgz , Fedora-20-ARM.root.tgz }
> Fedora-20-ARMv7-Panda.tgz = { ARMv7.panda.boot.tgz ,
> Fedora-20-ARM.root.tgz } ...
> 
> The only problem I don't understand is that it doesn't seem to be as
> simple as just choosing a general ARMv5 kernel for an ARMv5 device as
> an ARMv5 Guru differs from a ARMv5 Smarttop which differs from an
> ARMv5 Panda, etc...
> 
> I'm sure most of you have a better idea of how this should work but
> the user should only have to download one file at the end of the day
> right?
> 
> Thanks,
> Jon.
> 
> 

I think that what we likely need to do is to ship something that is a
disk image. a sparsified file say 2 or 4g that we setup with MLO
installed first, a vfat first partition. and a / partition.  that we
can just dd onto a sdcard. then extend the filesystem to the size of
the disk. this way things like a guruplug, panda etc just work.  

for a trimslice we likely want to a anaconda install image that can be
booted and will run anaconda. 

in the first case we should have a minimal install, XFCE, gnome, KDE,
LXDE, and SoaS at the least.  anaconda can follow later. we could
always boot the live sdcards on a trimslice or a smartop/smartbook
where you have the possibility of running anaconda. as well as future
server class hardware. its something that needs o be on the road map.
but doesnt need to be now.  Im not sure that we should ship just
tarballs of root filesystems. a card deployment tool could use qemu and
yum to install the right kernel for the system onto a sdcard. once we
have dd'ed on the drive. 

What im getting at is we need to have a packaged format like a disk
image, something that is simple to deploy. isos do not really make any
sense for ARM, but we should have live images, install images, etc.

Dennis