[OLPC-devel] suggested requirement for new kernels and initrds: must boot under qemu and/or kexec as kernel and initrd before release as a stream

[Ronald G Minnich]

I'd like to suggest that we require that new kernels and initrd's boot 
correctly under qemu via the -kernel and -initrd switches. The reason is 
that if they won't boot under qemu, they probably won't boot under kexec 
either. I have yet to work out what the problem is, I've been scratching 
my head until now trying to verify that it is a problem; but there is no 
question in my mind that SOMETHING about the kernel/initrd on the devel 
disk is not playing well with qemu AND kexec -- although grub seems to 
work.

So, for all new releases, it ought to be possible to automate a quick 
boot under qemu:
qemu -nographic -kernel whatever -initrd whatever -append "command line" 
-hda "the image" -boot c

Or, if you just want to watch it, skip the nographic step.

I have a kernel/initrd that I can boot under linuxbios (as a 
mkelfimage); under qemu; and under kexec. I can actually boot this 
kernel/initrd as flash ROM in linuxbios; then I can boot it from the 
linux that boots from linuxbios; then I can boot it from itself; and it 
boots fine under qemu. This is doable. In fact it has worked very 
reliably until just the last month or two, when kernel/initrd pairs 
started to become unreliable under qemu for reasons I am going to try to 
understand. Something's broken!

I have had a lot of trouble with reliably booting the olpc devel 
kernel/initrd's at all.

I hope this idea is ok. I think qemu booting is a very good early test 
for kexec booting, and we really need solid kexec support.

thanks

ron