Subject: [bug#29409] [PATCH] system: Add BeagleBone Black installer.

From: Mathieu Othacehe <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 18:57:43 +0100

> I’d be tempted to just add it to (gnu system install) and then we’d do:
>
>   guix system disk-image -e '(@ (gnu system install) beaglebone-black-installation-os)'
>
> WDYT?

It seems better !

> Now that sounds really awesome.  :-)

Thanks :)

> So you’ve successfully installed GuixSD on BBB using this image?

I succeeded in booting the installer, I didn't try to install GuixSD on
eMMC for now.

> Is the BBB powerful enough to run ‘guix pull’?  (I have an Olimex A20
> with 1G of RAM that just dies.)

I really doubt that it will succeed :(

> For small devices, it would also make sense to (cross-)build a
> ready-to-use GuixSD image and just write it to the device.
>
> Thoughts?

Sure I see two viable use-cases for now :

* Build a functional system (mpd or prosody server for example) and
  write it on an external sdcard.

* Cross-build a functional system and write it on an sdcard too.
  It could be interesting because building a system image on a quite
  powerful ARMv7 board (I bought an Odroid XU4 for this purpose) takes
  between 3-4 hours.

Time is mostly spent in qemu machine copying files and in
guix-registering.

I don't think installing/guix pulling/guix system reconfiguring/ as we
do it on intel systems is really viable on those tiny ARM boards.

> Anyway, kudos on that one!  I think you owe us a blog post with pictures
> of the BBB running GuixSD.  :-)

Thanks again and yes, it's the top task on my todo-list :)

Mathieu