Maemo Reconstructed
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== Initfs == | == Initfs == | ||
| - | === [[User:stskeeps|stskeeps]] 15: | + | === [[User:stskeeps|stskeeps]] 15:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC) === |
I believe that a initfs is a useful thing for a tablet. It can help you in many cases when the main system has crashed for whatever reason, and help you fix the problem or rescue your data. For Maemo "R" I believe it should contain the following things: | I believe that a initfs is a useful thing for a tablet. It can help you in many cases when the main system has crashed for whatever reason, and help you fix the problem or rescue your data. For Maemo "R" I believe it should contain the following things: | ||
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* Boot menu alike fanoush's bootmenu , with a /etc/bootmenu.d like setting (inspiration from grub menu.lst, | * Boot menu alike fanoush's bootmenu , with a /etc/bootmenu.d like setting (inspiration from grub menu.lst, | ||
** Motivation: Cloning to SD is a popular activity amongst community users, to gain more application space. A bootmenu item system should be brought to Maemo to avoid a lot of hacks laying about for the same thing, which makes it difficult for SSU to deal with. | ** Motivation: Cloning to SD is a popular activity amongst community users, to gain more application space. A bootmenu item system should be brought to Maemo to avoid a lot of hacks laying about for the same thing, which makes it difficult for SSU to deal with. | ||
| + | ** Note: Bootmenu should be unintrusive and invisible to the usual user (but may be activated to be more verbose in control panel) | ||
* Rescue menu, possibly alike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h24f2YjzWBE (or in text form). That can both activate certain services from initfs or set boot settings such as framebuffer console or other settings for the system (think F8-while-boot in windows.) | * Rescue menu, possibly alike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h24f2YjzWBE (or in text form). That can both activate certain services from initfs or set boot settings such as framebuffer console or other settings for the system (think F8-while-boot in windows.) | ||
** Motivation: Many community users often run into the dreaded reboot loops. This can be solved by having various things in initfs to solve the general problems. One can be usbnet/g_serial (for emergency shell - or PC accesory programs for dumping the files from NAND /home/user/ through usbnet telnet) , acting like a file storage (expose LUN of MMC cards), dump NAND contents to files on MMC, - the possibilities are endless. These abilities should be modelled with a "plugin" structure, to encourage innovation in this area. | ** Motivation: Many community users often run into the dreaded reboot loops. This can be solved by having various things in initfs to solve the general problems. One can be usbnet/g_serial (for emergency shell - or PC accesory programs for dumping the files from NAND /home/user/ through usbnet telnet) , acting like a file storage (expose LUN of MMC cards), dump NAND contents to files on MMC, - the possibilities are endless. These abilities should be modelled with a "plugin" structure, to encourage innovation in this area. | ||
| + | * Contain closed-source hardware specific firmware, drivers (cx3110x, etc), daemons (BME, hw watchdog kicker), but should not try to load wifi drivers and such initially except for FS drivers needed to boot, leaving it up to the post-initfs OS to do this. | ||
| + | * The initfs should mount the rootfs at /mnt/rootfs, pass on control to a /linuxrc (which runs in initfs namespace), which will then deal with the typical items such as pivot_root and passing control to init/upstart. | ||
| + | * Daemon communication from post-initfs should rely on daemon unix sockets being in /mnt/initfs/tmp/, not /tmp as many typical | ||
| + | |||
| + | == Maemo Minimal Base == | ||
Revision as of 15:44, 31 October 2008
This wiki page has the purpose of bringing together developers both internally in Nokia and community developers, who have an interest in the Maemo platform. The goal is trying to reach a vision of how a future Maemo system architecture could be like, that's satisfying to both Nokia and community. This is meant as the actual low level -technical- system goals (use of upstart, busybox specifics, initfs or not) not high level items such as "ogg in media players" or "open source everything".
This discussion was sparked by:
- http://wiki.maemo.org/Mainstream_Linux_Alignment
- http://qgil.jaiku.com/presence/47635104
- http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-developers/2008-October/035409.html .
Contents |
Kernel
Initfs
stskeeps 15:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
I believe that a initfs is a useful thing for a tablet. It can help you in many cases when the main system has crashed for whatever reason, and help you fix the problem or rescue your data. For Maemo "R" I believe it should contain the following things:
- Boot menu alike fanoush's bootmenu , with a /etc/bootmenu.d like setting (inspiration from grub menu.lst,
- Motivation: Cloning to SD is a popular activity amongst community users, to gain more application space. A bootmenu item system should be brought to Maemo to avoid a lot of hacks laying about for the same thing, which makes it difficult for SSU to deal with.
- Note: Bootmenu should be unintrusive and invisible to the usual user (but may be activated to be more verbose in control panel)
- Rescue menu, possibly alike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h24f2YjzWBE (or in text form). That can both activate certain services from initfs or set boot settings such as framebuffer console or other settings for the system (think F8-while-boot in windows.)
- Motivation: Many community users often run into the dreaded reboot loops. This can be solved by having various things in initfs to solve the general problems. One can be usbnet/g_serial (for emergency shell - or PC accesory programs for dumping the files from NAND /home/user/ through usbnet telnet) , acting like a file storage (expose LUN of MMC cards), dump NAND contents to files on MMC, - the possibilities are endless. These abilities should be modelled with a "plugin" structure, to encourage innovation in this area.
- Contain closed-source hardware specific firmware, drivers (cx3110x, etc), daemons (BME, hw watchdog kicker), but should not try to load wifi drivers and such initially except for FS drivers needed to boot, leaving it up to the post-initfs OS to do this.
- The initfs should mount the rootfs at /mnt/rootfs, pass on control to a /linuxrc (which runs in initfs namespace), which will then deal with the typical items such as pivot_root and passing control to init/upstart.
- Daemon communication from post-initfs should rely on daemon unix sockets being in /mnt/initfs/tmp/, not /tmp as many typical