Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2017 17:37:22 +0100
From: Natanael Copa <ncopa@alpinelinux.org>
To: Gennady Feldman <gena01@gmail.com>
Cc: Jack Schmidt <alpine@mowsey.org>, alpine-devel@lists.alpinelinux.org
Subject: Re: [alpine-devel] Alpine Linux 3.7.0 Release Candidate 1 on
 VirtualBox
Message-ID: <20171201173722.7d94d98c@ncopa-desktop.copa.dup.pw>
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	<20171129181404.4df7941b@ncopa-desktop.copa.dup.pw>
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On Thu, 30 Nov 2017 09:50:20 -0500
Gennady Feldman <gena01@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> From a quick look looks like:
> CONFIG_EFI=y
> CONFIG_EFI_STUB=y
> 
> are missing from the virthardened config.

Thank you. this was very useful.

I am sorry that we didn't have time to get that in before the 3.7.0
release.

I believe it is useful to be able to choose wherever you want use EFI
or legacy bios, even for the virt kernel, so i think we should fix this.

Thank you!

-nc

> 
> Thank you,
> 
> On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 12:14 PM, Natanael Copa <ncopa@alpinelinux.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > Thanks you very much for testing.
> >
> > I think the most critical issues are fixed. I have not bothered fix the
> > eject issue, since I think it mostly affects virtualbox only.
> >
> > I haven't looked at the alpine-virt + efi issue, yet. I suppose there
> > are some kernel modules that are needed?
> >
> > Can you please re-run the tests with the 3.7.0_rc3?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > -nc
> >
> > On Sat, 25 Nov 2017 21:39:02 -0500
> > Jack Schmidt <alpine@mowsey.org> wrote:
> >  
> > > Here are my notes on Alpine 3.7.0 rc1 installations using VirtualBox  
> > hosted on x86_64 Darwin.  
> > >
> > >
> > > Summary:
> > >
> > > * Standard, Extended, Vanilla, Virtual on BIOS just work (minor issues)
> > > * Standard, Extended, Vanilla on EFI has one major issue (bad fsck)
> > > * Virtual is broken on EFI (no kernel support)
> > >
> > > In each case I tried to do a base install to an IDE disk, as "sys",  
> > default options. I also tried booting the ISO as a run-from-ram system.
> > Virtual on EFI requires a serial console, but otherwise all ISOs
> > run-from-ram smoothly.  
> > >
> > > The fsck issue needs to be fixed. The 4.9.63 vs 4.9.59 should be fixed.  
> > The Virtual EFI probably should be fixed, but is easily worked-around by
> > end users. The minor issues would be nice to increase adoption of bootable
> > alpine, but aren't necessary. I assume docker containers are just fine: I
> > use edge all the time without trouble.  
> > >
> > >
> > > Standard, Extended, Vanilla, Virtual legacy BIOS minor issues:
> > >
> > > * Install boot might be too quiet for too long
> > >
> > > The BIOS boot takes 5 to 20 seconds, so the "quiet" option in  
> > boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg might need to be accompanied by a "say" or a
> > "menu autoboot" type thing. Grub EFI boot is mostly better, but sometimes
> > takes a long time between messages. The installed version is a little slow,
> > but has a reasonable amount of messages to let you know it is progressing.  
> > >
> > >
> > > Standard, Extended, Vanilla, Virtual both BIOS and EFI minor issues:
> > >
> > > * After setup-alpine is complete, eject cdrom
> > > * Install boot and installed root use different kernels, rescue is hard
> > > * (hardened/virthardened) Guest additions kernel version problem
> > >
> > > Install for BIOS works easily on Standard, Extended, Vanilla, Virtual.  
> > Install for EFI works easily on Standard, Extended, Vanilla, but fails for
> > Virtual.  
> > >
> > > After the install, setup-alpine asks to reboot, but doesn't "eject -s"  
> > (-s required for me) the cd. That means alpine reboots under the readonly
> > cdrom with a tmpfs. This works fine, but is surprising if you are
> > installing software.  
> > >
> > > After the eject, system comes up much more noisily / green, so probably  
> > reassuring.  
> > >
> > > However, it comes up under 4.9.59-0-*hardened or 4.9.65 vanilla, so one  
> > can't use the ISO's 4.9.63 kernel to boot a rescue. If it isn't too much
> > trouble, for the final 3.7 release, it'd be good if the kernel matched on
> > the ISO's boot and the ISO's apk.  
> > >
> > > Guest additions (mostly not needed by me) are hard to load, since they  
> > are in /lib/modules/4.9.65-* but the kernel is actually 4.9.59-*. Once that
> > is fixed, all good.  
> > >
> > >
> > > Standard, Extended, Vanilla EFI issue (vfat.fsck)
> > >
> > > * 1.5GB disk required
> > > * vfat.fsck
> > >
> > > Alpine is known for it's very small size. The ISOs are a nice size. I  
> > have a VM that runs off a 10MB iso, and the Virtual ISO is good at under
> > 40MB. I was trying out ubuntu variations and had to choose my physical
> > network to handle the each-iso-is-a-gig downloads. Alpine is very easy to
> > try. However, the new EFI install creates a 500MB /boot/efi partition to
> > hold 500KB of boot data. It might be worthwhile to check the total size of
> > the disk, and not use so much on it for smaller (1 or 2 gig) drives.  
> > >
> > > More importantly /boot/efi fails its fsck due to a syntax error:
> > >
> > > fsck.vfat: unrecognized option: C
> > >
> > > This is from /etc/init.d/fsck. Since the fsck service fails, most of the  
> > rest of the boot is not really attempted. / is mounted read-only. Network
> > is down.  
> > >
> > > Remounting / rw, removing the -C0 from fsck, and rebooting is OK. You  
> > still get a scary error, but the system comes up fine.  
> > >
> > > See also https://bugs.alpinelinux.org/issues/8090 for raspberry pi  
> > breakage and suggested fix (seems reasonable to me: write a simple shell
> > script wrapper for fsck.vfat and fsck.fat that ignores ext2/3/4 arguments).  
> > >
> > > I think this must be fixed before a release.
> > >
> > >
> > > Virtual EFI fail
> > >
> > > Virtual's virthardened kernel lacks EFI support (even in module form).  
> > Also it is worse on VirtualBox EFI since it also lacks video drivers. The
> > serial console works, but is hard to use (telnet lacks tab-completion, GNU
> > screen requires socat, and only one terminal). Since /sys/firmware/efi is
> > not available, setup-disk does not realize it was an EFI boot and does
> > everything wrong.  
> > >
> > > I suspect it would be a good idea to include EFI support for the Virtual  
> > ISO / virthardened kernel too. The fix would make Alpine seem more reliable
> > and would cut down on the "why is the screen black?" questions. However, to
> > workaround it is easy to turn off EFI, and legacy BIOS is more standard for
> > virtual machines, I believe.  
> > >
> > >
> > >
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> >
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