[Vmdebootstrap-devel] Bug#776975: vmdebootstrap: default to armmp kernel variant on armhf.

[Vagrant Cascadian]

Control: severity -1 normal

I'm realising that vmdebootstrap currently picks "linux-image-armhf" by
default on armhf, which doesn't exist, so raising the severity.

On 2015-02-03, Neil Williams wrote:
> On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 09:04:19 -0800
> Vagrant Cascadian <vagrant at debian.org> wrote:

>> For Jessie systems at least, the default kernel for armhf should be
>> set to armmp. Attached should be a patch to make this the default
>> behavior, and a second patch to remove explicitly setting the kernel
>> variant for several examples, which would be redundant.
>
> The patch to vmdebootstrap itself should check for the distribution
> specified - possibly using python-distro-info.
>
> Something like:
>
> from distro_info import DebianDistroInfo
> suites = DebianDistroInfo()
> if distro == 'wheezy' or suites.codename(distro) == 'wheezy':
>
> (There'll also need to be a change to the manpage & README as this
> would affect people running vmdebootstrap from git but I don't need a
> patch for that.)

That seems a bit overkill to me, as there is no sane default on a wheezy
system. Always defaulting to linux-image-armmp for armhf works for
jessie, testing, sid and unstable... and seems better than always
defaulting to an invalid kernel package unless the user manually
specifies the right one.


>> FWIW, cubietruck could probably default to linux-image-armmp-lpae
>> rather than the default, though should be compatible with
>> linux-image-armmp.
>
> Defaults get a bit awkward for ARMv7, so I'm happy to keep that as
> --no-kernel --package=linux-image-armmp-lpae in the cubietruck example.

I don't think it currently specifies the armmp-lpae variant, it
currently specifies the armmp variant in the cubietruck example.

I only mentioned it because you currently have three examples all
specifying the same kernel, which wouldn't need to if it used a sane
default, although the cubieboard could maybe be changed to use a more
specific kernel.


> It's not as if cubietruck is going to not need the other options and
> customisations. It would be so much easier if every ARMv7 board used
> the same serial port but they all have their own... 

Admittedly, having to specify --no-kernel in order to specify the
desired kernel is a bit confusing:

  --no-kernel --package=linux-image-VARIANT

I did work on some patches to specify a kernel with --kernel=package,
but that's maybe getting too far off-topic for this bug...


live well,
  vagrant
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