Re: [OSSTEST PATCH] README.hardware-acquisition

[George Dunlap <dunlapg@umich.edu>]

On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 4:14 PM Ian Jackson <ian.jackson@eu.citrix.com> wrote:
> +   + Baremetal boot from Debian stable or stable-backports:
> +
> +     A suitable Linux kernel binary which can boot baremetal on the
> +     proposed hardware must be available from Debian (at least
> +     `stable', or, if that is not possible `stable-backports').  It is
> +     not OK to require a patched version of Linux, or a version of
> +     Linux built from a particular git branch, or some such.  If the
> +     required kernel is not available in Debian, the vendor should
> +     first work with the Debian project to ensure and validate that
> +     the Debian stable-backports kernel binaries boot on the proposed
> +     hardware.

So it sounds like (from the rest of this discussion) the real
requirement is "osstest must be able to install a system such that it
can build the target versions of Linux and Xen".  At the moment, that
means that the proposed hardware must be supported by debian +
stable-backports.  Osstest does not have functionality to build custom
versions of Linux for build boxes, nor does it have support for Yocto.

Would it make sense to reword it this way:

---
+ Baremetal boot from Debian stable or stable-backports:

In order to avoid cross-compilation, Osstest must be able to install a
bare-metal system on the host itself in order to build Linux and Xen
test binaries for that host. At the moment osstest uses Debian for
this, and there is no facility in osstest for building custom kernels
for this purpose.  As such, a suitable Linux kernel binary which can
boot baremetal on the proposed hardware must be available from Debian
(at least `stable', or, if that is not possible, `stable-backports').
Osstest cannot install using a patched version of Linux, or one built
from a particular git branch, or some such.  If the required kernel is
not available in Debian, the vendor should ideally work with the
Debian project to ensure and validate that Debian stable-backports
kernel binaries boot on the proposed hardware.  Alternately, the
vendor can work with the community to implement the necessary
functionality within osstest to enable it to build custom kernels for
build installs, or use alternate distributions which have better
baremetal support for the hardware.
---

 -George

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