Porting GuixSD to ARM

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4 participants
  • Jookia
  • Efraim Flashner
  • Ludovic Courtès
  • Mathieu Lirzin
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Jookia
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J
J
Jookia wrote on 16 Jan 2016 11:27
Requirements for an ARM port?
(address . bug-guix@gnu.org)
20160116102726.GA4482@novena-choice-citizen.lan
Hey there,

I'm considering seeing if I can get GuixSD to work on an ARM board of mine. I'd
like to know what the main blockers are that I'll need to pass. From what I've
read and understood, the reason there's no ARM port now is lack of work and
reliance on GRUB. Assuming I bootstrap and set up a u-boot package for my
specific board, what else would I need to do?

Cheers,
Jookia.
E
E
Efraim Flashner wrote on 17 Jan 2016 09:10
(name . Jookia)(address . 166291@gmail.com)(address . 22384@debbugs.gnu.org)
20160117101027.65088e3b@debian-netbook
On Sat, 16 Jan 2016 21:27:26 +1100
Jookia <166291@gmail.com> wrote:

Toggle quote (12 lines)
> Hey there,
>
> I'm considering seeing if I can get GuixSD to work on an ARM board of mine. I'd
> like to know what the main blockers are that I'll need to pass. From what I've
> read and understood, the reason there's no ARM port now is lack of work and
> reliance on GRUB. Assuming I bootstrap and set up a u-boot package for my
> specific board, what else would I need to do?
>
> Cheers,
> Jookia.
>

According to the documentation, the arm board needs to be armv7 or later, and
support hard float, thumb-2, NEON, and support the EABI hard-float ABI.

I don't know a lot about setting up arm boards, but if I understand it
correctly, u-boot -> kernel -> guixsd image, where u-boot and the kernel get
updated in tandem.

I wish you much luck with getting GuixSD to run on an arm board, I think many
of us are looking forward to this working.

--
Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il> ????? ?????
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L
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Ludovic Courtès wrote on 17 Jan 2016 21:39
(name . Jookia)(address . 166291@gmail.com)(address . 22384@debbugs.gnu.org)
87h9ic54ar.fsf@gnu.org
Jookia <166291@gmail.com> skribis:

Toggle quote (6 lines)
> I'm considering seeing if I can get GuixSD to work on an ARM board of mine. I'd
> like to know what the main blockers are that I'll need to pass. From what I've
> read and understood, the reason there's no ARM port now is lack of work and
> reliance on GRUB. Assuming I bootstrap and set up a u-boot package for my
> specific board, what else would I need to do?

I think getting a working bootloader and kernel are the main blockers
(the current ‘linux-libre’ package might work already, or it might need
more tweaks; I don’t think anyone has tried to boot it on ARM.)

I would prefer if we could use GRUB with ARM support¹ if possible.
Using U-Boot would be OK if GRUB doesn’t work as expected, but it’s more
work; namely, a module equivalent to (gnu system grub) would need to be
made, and (gnu system) would need to be made independent of GRUB.

At any rate, GuixSD on ARM would be very nice!

Ludo’.

work)
J
J
Jookia wrote on 17 Jan 2016 22:01
(name . Ludovic Courtès)(address . ludo@gnu.org)(address . 22384@debbugs.gnu.org)
20160117210123.GA3804@novena-choice-citizen.lan
On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 09:39:24PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
Toggle quote (5 lines)
> Jookia <166291@gmail.com> skribis:
> I think getting a working bootloader and kernel are the main blockers
> (the current ‘linux-libre’ package might work already, or it might need
> more tweaks; I don’t think anyone has tried to boot it on ARM.)

Ah, it shouldn't be that much of a problem then. Famous last words, but I guess
I'll be doing some hacking to get GuixSD on ARM then! No promises. :)

Toggle quote (5 lines)
> I would prefer if we could use GRUB with ARM support¹ if possible.
> Using U-Boot would be OK if GRUB doesn’t work as expected, but it’s more
> work; namely, a module equivalent to (gnu system grub) would need to be
> made, and (gnu system) would need to be made independent of GRUB.

I agree GRUB with ARM support would be better, though from my experience it's
still in its infancy. I've managed to get GRUB executing on my Novena board but
I've still had issues having it actually boot anything, eventually I gave up
since my use case was solved by something else. So unfortunately until that's
ironed out (and supported on more boards), I think U-Boot will have to make do
for now. I suppose it's also good hygiene to support more booting methods too.

Toggle quote (3 lines)
> At any rate, GuixSD on ARM would be very nice!
> Ludo’.

I much appreciate the reply and sorry for opening a bug report on this rather
than posting to -devel or help-. I'll probably have a ton of bug reports and
patches down the line as I get GuixSD on to my T400, so I'm now drinking from
the firehose of all three mailing lists. :)

Cheers,
Jookia.
L
L
Ludovic Courtès wrote on 18 Jan 2016 09:03
(name . Jookia)(address . 166291@gmail.com)(address . 22384@debbugs.gnu.org)
87k2n7mhzu.fsf@gnu.org
Jookia <166291@gmail.com> skribis:

Toggle quote (5 lines)
> I much appreciate the reply and sorry for opening a bug report on this rather
> than posting to -devel or help-. I'll probably have a ton of bug reports and
> patches down the line as I get GuixSD on to my T400, so I'm now drinking from
> the firehose of all three mailing lists. :)

Heh. :-) Don’t hesitate to ask if you have troubles or anything;
everyone will be happy to help that effort!

Ludo’.
L
L
Ludovic Courtès wrote on 18 Jan 2016 09:04
control message for bug #22384
(address . control@debbugs.gnu.org)
87fuxvmhyj.fsf@gnu.org
severity 22384 wishlist
L
L
Ludovic Courtès wrote on 18 Jan 2016 09:06
retitle
(address . request@debbugs.gnu.org)
87bn8jmhv6.fsf@gnu.org
retitle 22384 Porting GuixSD to ARM
thanks
M
M
Mathieu Lirzin wrote on 15 Jan 2018 17:58
Re: bug#22384: Requirements for an ARM port?
(name . Jookia)(address . 166291@gmail.com)(address . 22384@debbugs.gnu.org)
877esjf49p.fsf@gnu.org
Hello,

Jookia <166291@gmail.com> writes:

Toggle quote (6 lines)
> I'm considering seeing if I can get GuixSD to work on an ARM board of mine. I'd
> like to know what the main blockers are that I'll need to pass. From what I've
> read and understood, the reason there's no ARM port now is lack of work and
> reliance on GRUB. Assuming I bootstrap and set up a u-boot package for my
> specific board, what else would I need to do?

According to [1] Guix 0.14 provides support for ARMv7. So I would
consider this bug fixed.


--
Mathieu Lirzin
GPG: F2A3 8D7E EB2B 6640 5761 070D 0ADE E100 9460 4D37
M
M
Mathieu Lirzin wrote on 15 Jan 2018 17:58
control message for bug #22384
(address . control@debbugs.gnu.org)
876083f48y.fsf@gnu.org
tags 22384 fixed
close 22384
L
L
Ludovic Courtès wrote on 17 Jan 2018 15:02
Re: bug#22384: Requirements for an ARM port?
(name . Mathieu Lirzin)(address . mthl@gnu.org)
87d12860sf.fsf@gnu.org
Hello,

Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@gnu.org> skribis:

Toggle quote (13 lines)
> Jookia <166291@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I'm considering seeing if I can get GuixSD to work on an ARM board of mine. I'd
>> like to know what the main blockers are that I'll need to pass. From what I've
>> read and understood, the reason there's no ARM port now is lack of work and
>> reliance on GRUB. Assuming I bootstrap and set up a u-boot package for my
>> specific board, what else would I need to do?
>
> According to [1] Guix 0.14 provides support for ARMv7. So I would
> consider this bug fixed.
>
> [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2017/porting-guixsd-to-armv7/

Indeed. As the post mentions, GuixSD has not been “ported to ARM” but
rather ported to a specific ARM board—but that’s the way it is.

Thanks for going through the bug backlog!

Ludo’.
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