[debian-yeeloong-project] d-i Yeeloong port in progress

[Colin Watson]

Hi,

Ryan Lortie kindly lent me his Yeeloong for a few weeks, so I'm working
on porting d-i to it.  Other people had already done lots of the usual
work for a new port (the kernel, the boot loader, etc.), so I'm really
just tying together some loose ends and trying to make
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianYeeloong/HowTo/Install less of an involved
procedure.

Done and committed/uploaded:

 * added loongson-2f kernel udebs
 * fixed partitioner to select msdos partition tables on Loongson
   without complaining
 * added d-i images (a debian-installer source package with that change
   probably won't be uploaded for a while, but we should get daily
   builds at
   http://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/mipsel/daily/loongson-2f/ in the
   not too distant future anyway)

In progress:

 * fix up partitioner to have correct checks on /boot so that PMON can
   read from it (it currently requires ext2r0 more or less by accident,
   which is too strict)
 * add mipsel/loongson-2f support to grub-installer

To do:

 * wireless doesn't seem to work for me in d-i, even if I 'echo 1
   >/sys/class/rfkill/rfkill0/state', although I do have the rtl8187
   module loaded and d-i does recognise that the wlan0 device exists -
   am I missing something?
 * autopartitioning recipes
 * make grub-installer create a suitable boot.cfg if it doesn't already
   exist
 * write text for the installation guide
 * edit lots of wiki pages

Deferred:

 * it would be nice to deliver d-i images bootable using GRUB, since
   GRUB loads initrds faster than versions of PMON before 2010-09-13 and
   is generally more flexible; but the lack of EHCI support in GRUB
   right now makes this difficult
 * alternatively, it would be nice to ship a boot.cfg which loads d-i,
   but the PMON version installed here predates reading boot.cfg from
   USB by default, and the hardware owner said I could do anything with
   it as long as I didn't reflash, so I wouldn't be able to test this

Am I missing anything that's within the domain of the installer?

I must say that this is quite a nice little piece of kit.  The keyboard
is uncomfortably small for me (I have big hands), but that's in common
with every other netbook I've seen so I won't hold that against the
Yeeloong in particular.  Being able to easily see exactly what the
firmware is prepared to boot from is a boon for installer development;
I've had to experiment and/or disassemble bits of firmware in the past.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at debian.org]