RFC: add genkernel-next patches or switch to genkernel-4

[sarnold]

Hi: I couldn't find a better place for this since it requires a decision if you want to test it (now) and think about buildkernel/EFI-Guide integration, or wait and see for a response to the bug I just submitted:

https://bugs.gentoo.org/698606

I did think about a PR but decided against it; I can if you want one (the ebuild is in my overlay here: https://github.com/sarnold/portage-overlay/tree/master/sys-kernel/genkernel-next )

The patches are for both ~arm64 and subdirs in the initramfs files option; the second works great on the Carbon X1 install:

 ls -lh /boot/EFI/*
/boot/EFI/Boot:
total 330M
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 135K Oct  8 12:52 2019-10-08-12-52-05-config.old
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 157M Oct  8 12:52 2019-10-08-12-52-05-gentoo.efi.old
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 134K Oct  7 11:29 KeyTool.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 152K Oct 26 15:24 config
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 152K Oct 26 15:24 config.old
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  20M Oct 26 15:24 gentoo.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 154M Oct 26 15:24 gentoo.efi.old

I have no idea if you can use it on pi64 but it works great with the kernel bootsplash patches on pinebook and nanopi-k2 (in a pitop even). Thanks for all the cool stuff; I'm going to test your (much) smaller EFI kernel approach on some chromebooks...

[sarnold]

Howdy again: If I didn't say before, thanks so much for your work on the EFI guide/tools and rpi64 stuff; I've been doing this (the Gentoo development stuff) since 2003 and this has really helped yank some of my habits out of the stone-age...

Anyway, after making the genkernel-next bug I got clued in to the current genkernel plans, which is basically switching back from the genkernel-next fork and moving to genkernel-4 (currently at 4-beta20). The current beta20 already has subdirectory support in the FIRMWARE_FILES list so I reworked the arm64 patch on top of ^^ that.

If you wanted to test the genkernel-4 ebuild in the main tree, you can make the initramfs much smaller by only including the required firmware, eg, intel video blobs, etc. My "kernel" is only 20 MBs now ;)

(see https://github.com/sarnold/portage-overlay/tree/master/sys-kernel/genkernel if you want the patch)

[sakaki-]

Thanks - been a bit swamped last week or so >< but will take a look at this shortly. Best, sakaki

[sakaki-]

31 Oct 2020: sadly, due to legal obligations arising from a recent change in my 'real world' job, I must announce I am standing down as maintainer of this project with immediate effect. For the meantime, I will leave the repo up (for historical interest, and since the ebuilds etc. may be of use to others); however, I plan no further updates, nor will I be accepting / actioning further pull requests or bug reports from this point. Email requests for support will also have to be politely declined, so, please treat this as an effective EOL notice.

For further details, please see my post here.

If you have used my EFI Guide (and this repo) to install your PC-based Gentoo system, it should still continue to work for some time, but you should now take steps to migrate to a baseline Gentoo Handbook install (since the underlying tools, such as buildkernel, will also now no longer be supported and may eventually fail as more modern kernels etc. are released).

With sincere apologies, sakaki ><