Installer Scope

A simple installer for GRUB and SYSLINUX boot loaders currently exists in the oe-core layer. The installer has a number of limitations and specific requirements that developers often encounter. This page helps define the scope of the installer such that the Yocto Project Team can better triage bugs filed against the installer.

Requirements

Following are requirements that this simple boot loader must have:

• Must work with boot loaders other than GRUB and SYSLINUX.

• Must have the ability to use UUID from the initial RAM disk.

• The root filesystem contains installer scripts for both basic installs and EFI installs.

• Must contain either an msdos or gpt basic partition. The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) creates two parts for the basic partition: system and root. The root filesystem is loop mounted and copied from to the root partition. The partition has magic for both the boot loader and the Master Boot Record (MBR).

• The installer must have minimal user interaction required to install it to disk. A possible scenario is to have the installer selectable from a list.

• Must be able to be installed on target hardware to facilitate automated QA testing.

• The root filesystem contains plugin architecture to facilitate installation of other packages such as ptest.

• The root filesystem partitioning exists for system, rootfs, and swap.

• Sata vs. USB: initramdisk enables UUID and udev rules apply. (We should check to see what Wind River does.)

• Live Image -> cpio root / kernel/ initramfs.

Restrictions

The installer does not support multiple kernels.

Known Issues

Currently, the installer has a race condition with Sata versus USB drives (sda vs sdb when booting from USB).