[Soc-coordination] kFreeBSD progress report week 6

[Luca Favatella]

In the past two weeks I managed to produce a GNU/kFreeBSD
debian-installer (d-i) image being able to boot up to a "welcome
screen".


I switched to the .udeb packages on debian.org (previously I was using
those on debian-ports.org).

I proposed two patches, i.e. libc [0] and kernel [1], for inclusion
into d-i trunk, and both were accepted.
I didn't manage to split rootskel-bootfloppy from the building of the
rootskel package [2], so I didn't propose it for inclusion.

I disabled the debug shell, to workaround the current known bug in the
GNU/kFreeBSD port of BusyBox ash.

Analysing the cdebconf templates related issue, I initially thought it
was caused by the dlopen() function.
Then my mentor discovered the cause was an unexistent file, i.e.
/var/lib/cdebconf/templates.dat, that should be created at runtime.
I discovered that file couldn't be created because the filesystem was read-only.
Making it read-write [3] solved the issue.

A terminal issue [4] popped up, and I quickly solved it.
I proposed the patch for inclusion into d-i trunk [5].

An other issue popped up: main-menu was launched, but the screen was all black.
I initially thought it was caused by the dup2() function, but
debugging it I got the same output on both GNU/kFreeBSD and GNU/Linux.
I discovered the problem was instead an infinite loop (see the debug
output [6]), caused by a poll() system call portability issue (see
[7]).

I lost so much time on the "black screen issue" that in the meantime I
made the netcfg package building with a hack.
It should be not working, because substituting the Linux specific
ethtool-lite is needed.
I proposed the generic part of the patch for inclusion into d-i trunk [8].

Finally I managed to produce a GNU/kFreeBSD d-i image being able to
boot up to a "welcome screen" [9]
Initially the keyboard (standard input) was not working, but I managed
to solve this without losing too much time [10].

To test the image, download the monolithic mini.iso from [11] and boot
it in your favourite virtual machine (if it is qemu, execute "qemu
-boot d -cdrom
mini.iso").
After choosing the language (not working), you can "execute a shell"
to play a bit.
If you try to "abort the installation", a funny screen will pop up [12].


In the next two weeks I should
-get keyboard layout selection working
-get network configuration working
-get udeb download and installation working



Luca Favatella




[0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2009/06/msg00685.html
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2009/06/msg00686.html
[2] http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/d-i/branches/d-i/kfreebsd/packages/rootskel/
[3] http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/d-i/branches/d-i/kfreebsd/packages/rootskel/src/sbin/init-kfreebsd?view=log#rev59096
[4] http://slackydeb.altervista.org/files/debian_gnu_kfreebsd/gsoc2009_kfreebsd_progress_report_week_6/20090625_1248.png
[5] http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2009/06/msg00932.html
[6] http://slackydeb.altervista.org/files/debian_gnu_kfreebsd/gsoc2009_kfreebsd_progress_report_week_6/20090629_1950.png
[7] http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2001/06/poll.html
[8] http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2009/06/msg00935.html
[9] http://slackydeb.altervista.org/files/debian_gnu_kfreebsd/gsoc2009_kfreebsd_progress_report_week_6/20090630_1223.png
[10] http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/d-i/branches/d-i/kfreebsd/packages/rootskel/?view=log#rev59196
[11] http://slackydeb.altervista.org/files/debian_gnu_kfreebsd/gsoc2009_kfreebsd_progress_report_week_6/mini.iso
[12] http://slackydeb.altervista.org/files/debian_gnu_kfreebsd/gsoc2009_kfreebsd_progress_report_week_6/20090702_1430.png