Subject: bug#22384: Requirements for an ARM port?

From: Jookia <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 08:01:23 +1100

On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 09:39:24PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Jookia <[email-masked]> 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. :)

> 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.

> 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.