[U-Boot] [PATCH 0/4] sunxi: Ease eMMC usage and flashing

[Maxime Ripard]

Hi Karsten,

On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 09:41:34PM +0100, Karsten Merker wrote:
> > We then provide a default partitionning scheme. I'd like feedback on
> > that one. I appreciate that having a good default in such a case, but
> > I'd like to have a reasonably simple layout that works good enough to
> > install a distro. I'm a bit short on background on what an EFI
> > partition is supposed to look like, and what a good size would be. I'd
> > really like some input on this.
> 
> the partitioning scheme from patch no. 3 of this series looks like
> follows:
> 
> #define PARTS_DEFAULT \
>        "name=loader1,start=8k,size=32k;" \
>        "name=loader2,size=984k;" \
>        "name=boot,size=128M,bootable;" \
>        "name=system,size=-;"
> 
> I assume that the intended use is
> - loader1: SPL
> - loader2: u-boot
> - boot: Linux /boot
> - system: Linux /
> 
> AFAIK the UEFI spec requires that the EFI system partition (ESP)
> is FAT-formatted.  Most (probably all?) Linux package management
> tooling assumes that files from packages are installed onto
> filesystems that support POSIX semantics, including hardlinks,
> which FAT does not.  This means that distributions cannot re-use
> an EFI system partition as /boot and therefore need a partition
> for /boot and an additional ESP (AFAIK commonly mounted to
> /boot/efi).  I would therefore like to propose adding a small
> separate partition for use as ESP.

The original intent of the "boot" partition wasn't really to store
/boot, but to be a FAT partition to store the environment + whatever
data needed for the EFI partition.

Maybe we can rename it if it's confusing?

Maxime

-- 
Maxime Ripard, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
http://free-electrons.com
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