Proposed F19 Feature: Syslinux Option

[Jaroslav Reznik]

= Features/SyslinuxOption =
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SyslinuxOption

Feature owner(s):  Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;

This feature will make Syslinux an optional bootloader for Fedora, in 
kickstart and via a hidden Anaconda option. When used this way, it will 
replace grub2. 

== Detailed description ==
The Syslinux bootloader has been part of Fedora for over a decade. It's been 
well-tested as the loader for the installer, but we've always used something 
else on the installed OS. Newer versions of Syslinux (in the form of a version 
called Extlinux) can boot from ext2/3/4 or from btrfs. 
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[Kevin Fenzi]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 19:30:09 +0000
Jaroslav Reznik <jreznik(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

>  = Features/SyslinuxOption =
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SyslinuxOption
>  
>  Feature owner(s):  Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  
>  This feature will make Syslinux an optional bootloader for Fedora, in 
>  kickstart and via a hidden Anaconda option. When used this way, it
>  will replace grub2. 
>  
>  == Detailed description ==
>  The Syslinux bootloader has been part of Fedora for over a decade.
>  It's been well-tested as the loader for the installer, but we've
>  always used something else on the installed OS. Newer versions of
>  Syslinux (in the form of a version called Extlinux) can boot from
>  ext2/3/4 or from btrfs. 
Two small things to note: 

a) I assume we aren't going to be adding secure boot support to it?

b) It might be good to note in docs/anaconda any configurations which
are not supported by syslinux vs grub2. ie, can lvm2 be used for /boot?

kevin

[Lennart Poettering]

On Wed, 23.01.13 13:17, Kevin Fenzi (kevin(a)scrye.com) wrote:

>  > The Syslinux bootloader has been part of Fedora for over a
> decade.
>  > It's been well-tested as the loader for the installer, but we've
>  > always used something else on the installed OS. Newer versions of
>  > Syslinux (in the form of a version called Extlinux) can boot from
>  > ext2/3/4 or from btrfs.
>  
>  Two small things to note: 
>  
>  a) I assume we aren't going to be adding secure boot support to it? 
secure boot is an EFI think. syslinux doesn't do EFI boots (at least not
in any stable version).

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc.

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 01:17:12PM -0700, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>  a) I assume we aren't going to be adding secure boot support to
> it? 
Right -- explicitly out of scope for this. Could be a future feature but we
don't need it now and certainly wouldn't want to make it a feature blocker.


>  b) It might be good to note in docs/anaconda any configurations
> which
>  are not supported by syslinux vs grub2. ie, can lvm2 be used for /boot? 
Yes. I'd be happy to have help with that. :)


-- 
Matthew Miller  ☁☁☁  Fedora Cloud Architect  ☁☁☁  <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;

[Miloslav Trmač]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 8:30 PM, Jaroslav Reznik <jreznik(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  = Features/SyslinuxOption =
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SyslinuxOption
>
>  Feature owner(s):  Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
>
>  This feature will make Syslinux an optional bootloader for Fedora, in
>  kickstart and via a hidden Anaconda option. When used this way, it will
>  replace grub2. 
So, to summarize, this saves <= 6 MB of disk space, and <= 1 second of
boot time, at the cost of extra maintenance and QA burden in anaconda
and grubby?

I'd love to hear what anaconda developers and Fedora QA think about
this trade-off.


Is there perhaps a consensus what the long-term future will look like?
 In particular, is it impossible/plausible/probable that most
architectures will move to EFI, and if so, will virtualization also
move to EFI eventually?  That would mean syslinux is not a long-term
option.  Or is the future in this area uncertain enough that there is
a benefit in having more options readily available?
   Mirek

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Miloslav Trmač <mitr(a)volny.cz&gt; said:
>  So, to summarize, this saves <= 6 MB of disk space, and <= 1
> second of
>  boot time, at the cost of extra maintenance and QA burden in anaconda
>  and grubby? 
Well, there's already code somewhere in Fedora that supports syslinux as
a boot loader, as all the install and live images use it.  It is also
the solution for PXE booting (although I don't think there are any tools
that handle PXE configuration).  Wouldn't it make sense to unify all the
boot loader handling code?

>   In particular, is it impossible/plausible/probable that most
>  architectures will move to EFI, and if so, will virtualization also
>  move to EFI eventually?  That would mean syslinux is not a long-term
>  option. 
Why would that mean syslinux is not a long-term option?  It doesn't
support EFI in today's released versions, but support is in development.
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams(a)hiwaay.net&gt;
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

[Peter Jones]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 12:48:18PM -0600, Chris Adams wrote:
>  Once upon a time, Miloslav Trmač <mitr(a)volny.cz&gt; said:
>  > So, to summarize, this saves <= 6 MB of disk space, and <= 1 second of
>  > boot time, at the cost of extra maintenance and QA burden in anaconda
>  > and grubby?
>  
>  Well, there's already code somewhere in Fedora that supports syslinux as
>  a boot loader, as all the install and live images use it.  It is also
>  the solution for PXE booting (although I don't think there are any tools
>  that handle PXE configuration).  Wouldn't it make sense to unify all the
>  boot loader handling code? 
It pretty much already is - installation is handled by anaconda, and so
that part of it lives there, and upgrades live in grubby, which handles
a great many formats, including extlinux already.

-- 
        Peter

[Seth Vidal]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2013, Miloslav Trmač wrote:

>  On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 8:30 PM, Jaroslav Reznik
> <jreznik(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > = Features/SyslinuxOption =
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SyslinuxOption
> >
> > Feature owner(s):  Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
> >
> > This feature will make Syslinux an optional bootloader for Fedora, in
> > kickstart and via a hidden Anaconda option. When used this way, it will
> > replace grub2.
>
>  So, to summarize, this saves <= 6 MB of disk space, and <= 1 second of
>  boot time, at the cost of extra maintenance and QA burden in anaconda
>  and grubby?
>
>  I'd love to hear what anaconda developers and Fedora QA think about
>  this trade-off.
>
>
>  Is there perhaps a consensus what the long-term future will look like?
>  In particular, is it impossible/plausible/probable that most
>  architectures will move to EFI, and if so, will virtualization also
>  move to EFI eventually?  That would mean syslinux is not a long-term
>  option.  Or is the future in this area uncertain enough that there is
>  a benefit in having more options readily available? 
I think the benefit is for the cloud instances (of which there will be 
considerably more than hw-installs) that don't need the features or 
complexity of grub - not too mention all the deps it pulls in, iirc.

that's the benefit.

-sv

[Peter Jones]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 06:57:09PM +0100, Miloslav Trmač wrote:
>  On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 8:30 PM, Jaroslav Reznik
> <jreznik(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > = Features/SyslinuxOption =
>  > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SyslinuxOption
>  >
>  > Feature owner(s):  Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  >
>  > This feature will make Syslinux an optional bootloader for Fedora, in
>  > kickstart and via a hidden Anaconda option. When used this way, it will
>  > replace grub2.
>  
>  So, to summarize, this saves <= 6 MB of disk space, and <= 1 second of
>  boot time, at the cost of extra maintenance and QA burden in anaconda
>  and grubby?
>  
>  I'd love to hear what anaconda developers and Fedora QA think about
>  this trade-off. 
I really like it, tbh, for e.g. smallish virt machine images, where the
size of grub2 really is a bit excessive.

>  Is there perhaps a consensus what the long-term future will look
> like?
>   In particular, is it impossible/plausible/probable that most
>  architectures will move to EFI, and if so, will virtualization also
>  move to EFI eventually? 
It follows that we will have EFI on virt (*possibly* still with a CSM)
eventually, and in that case, syslinux in its current form would not be
an option on such machines.  But in the near term, we'll still just have
BIOS in VMs, and this is beneficial there.

>  That would mean syslinux is not a long-term
>  option. 
At least in its current form.

-- 
        Peter

[Adam Williamson]

On Thu, 2013-01-24 at 18:57 +0100, Miloslav Trmač wrote:
>  On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 8:30 PM, Jaroslav Reznik
> <jreznik(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > = Features/SyslinuxOption =
>  > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SyslinuxOption
>  >
>  > Feature owner(s):  Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  >
>  > This feature will make Syslinux an optional bootloader for Fedora, in
>  > kickstart and via a hidden Anaconda option. When used this way, it will
>  > replace grub2.
>  
>  So, to summarize, this saves <= 6 MB of disk space, and <= 1 second of
>  boot time, at the cost of extra maintenance and QA burden in anaconda
>  and grubby?
>  
>  I'd love to hear what anaconda developers and Fedora QA think about
>  this trade-off. 
The proposal doesn't appear to include making this release blocking
functionality, so we'd feel no particular obligation to test it
extensively. So I don't see any real QA impact at least in the short
term. We could by all means throw an optional test in the matrix for
people to run if they want to, writing one would be, oh, ten minutes of
hard labour.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net

[Gerd Hoffmann]

  Hi,

>  Is there perhaps a consensus what the long-term future will look
> like?
>   In particular, is it impossible/plausible/probable that most
>  architectures will move to EFI, and if so, will virtualization also
>  move to EFI eventually? 
virtualization will support EFI, but certainly not require it.  Note
that one important use case of virtualization is to run old software ...

>  That would mean syslinux is not a long-term
>  option. 
EFI support for syslinux is in development already, so long-term it will
be there.

>   Or is the future in this area uncertain enough that there is
>  a benefit in having more options readily available? 
Well, a sane config format is reason enough, isn't it?

cheers,
  Gerd