[systemd-devel] How to apply for partition type GUID for Linux /boot?

[Lennart Poettering]

On Fr, 29.11.19 10:52, Arseny Maslennikov (ar at cs.msu.ru) wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 04:11:22PM +0100, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > On Do, 28.11.19 17:10, Arseny Maslennikov (ar at cs.msu.ru) wrote:
> >
> > > > This extended boot loader partition as GPT type UUID
> > > > bc13c2ff-59e6-4262-a352-b275fd6f7172 and that's documented in the
> > > > systemd-gpt-auto-generator(8) man page.
> > >
> > > The spec at freedesktop.org[1], (naturally) being the first Google hit
> > > for "discoverable partitions spec" and also being referred to from a lot
> > > of places all over the community[2][3][4][5][6], has no mention of the
> > > extended boot loader partition.
> >
> > It's out of date. We should update it, incorporating the definitions
> > from this spec:
> >
> > https://systemd.io/BOOT_LOADER_SPECIFICATION
>
> That would be awesome, I agree.
> The parts of BLS that Paul mentioned in this thread can then just
> refer to the DiscPartSpec instead of repeating it.
>
> There are disadvantages to dropping the fd.org wiki page, though.
> In order of least controversial first:
> * It looks like the page is already in Markdown (see below).
>   This would mean the wiki page requires no additional burden to
>   maintain: whenever a non-pre release is made, it can be automatically
>   updated from source. This makes sense given that the DiscPartSpec
>   development/discussion process de facto already takes place in the
>   systemd community's resources, while the spec is still technically a
>   freedesktop spec (has a wider scope than the systemd project, i. e.
>   can be implemented or adhered to outside of the systemd project;
>   Android as a rather heavy GPT user already does that).

Hmm? You are saying Android cares for the GPT partition types in the
discoverable partitions spec? Are you sure?

>   The domain name points to CloudFlare addresses; if the website is
>   indeed proxied by CloudFlare, it's easy to turn IPv6 on in their
>   control panel, and they automatically use IPv6 for new customers.
>   If systemd.io is implemented with GitHub Pages directly, that's a
>   bummer, we're at the mercy of GitHub network ops then.

Actually, we we host this on GitHub pages precisely so that we don't
have to actually maintain it...

>   wiki.freedesktop.org, on the other hand, works flawlessly over IPv6
>   for a long time already.

> * (no bad vibes intended) Public image concerns:
>   DiscPartSpec goes out of scope for the systemd project and is more
>   about the use of the hardware platform (system storage, to be exact)
>   to interoperate with external tools. It is much closer to util-linux
>   components, disk restore/backup tools, bootloaders.

Yes, util-linux recognizes the GPT partition types we defined, but are
you sure anyone cares outside of systemd-based distros?

Besides that, even systemd-hating distros also adopted
/etc/os-release, even though it's a systemd thing:

https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/os-release.html

So people have apparently been ablet to overlook systemd affinity in
that case, not sure why they shouldn't in the discoverable partitions
spec case...

(And there are similar cases, e.g. /run is a systemd thing. AFAIU not
even systemd-hating distros still do /var/run)

>   To reinforce this point, this part of the community has great total
>   influence on the user base: they spread word of mouth and often write
>   primer blog posts / take notes, guides and tutorials for beginners,
>   Wikipedia pages, make decisions in the development of functionally
>   adjacent software that interoperates with us.

I am sorry, but that's futile. Hater's gonna hate. I don't really
think we should care anymore. Besides, any true systemd hater is also
an fdo hater, no? so what's won?

Lennart

--
Lennart Poettering, Berlin