Failure to label a fat16 partition as pmOS_inst_boot using ondev

changed the description

By Alexander James Clarke on 2021-05-19T13:14:23

Thanks for reporting this, @AlexBigCheese! Indeed, the 11 char limit was not considered when deciding on the label.

pmOS_i_boot looks weird, but it would fit the 11 character limit (better name suggestions welcome).

This can be fixed as follows:

patch postmarketos-mkinitfs to recognize pmOS_i_boot too
patch postmarketos-ondev to rename pmOS_i_boot to pmOS_boot too, not only pmOS_install_boot. (I suggest moving the logic to a separate shell script, so the line doesn't become any longer.)
patch pmbotostrap to use pmOS_i_boot instead of pmOS_install_boot if the boot partition type is fat16 (suggesting this instead of always the shorter name for backwards compatibility with the previous postmarketos-ondev version)

Would you like to give it a try?

By Oliver Smith on 2021-05-19T20:08:55

added help wanted type::bug labels

Thanks for the fast reply!

I would like to give it a try, but I'd have no idea where to start cloning things to and such (I just got pmbootstrap off the AUR, so unless you can point me to where the files are on my system I'll have no clue ;-; )

By Alexander James Clarke on 2021-05-20T15:00:15

postmarketos-mkinitfs is in pmaports repo and cloned pmaports are located in $(pmbootstrap config aports).

postmarketos-ondev and pmbootstrap must be cloned before you can do work on them. To do that, simply do

git clone https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/postmarketos-ondev.git
git clone https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketos/pmbootstrap.git

Read https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Git_workflow to understand how to properly create and send changes based on pmaports example. To test changes you need to:

Install your modified pmbootstrap version as said in Installing pmbootstrap guide.
Modify postmarketos-mkinitfs and postmarketos-ondev as have been mentioned earlier and force rebuild packages
Try the failed command, it should work if you did everything correct

By HenriDellal on 2021-05-20T19:52:47

Have some patches, this is my progress so far.

pmbootstrap:

0001-Added-logic-for-using-a-tuple-as-the-boot-label.patch

0002-Used-a-tuple-for-the-boot-label.patch

pmaports:

0001-recognise-pmOS_i_boot-as-a-boot-partition.patch

postmarketos-ondev:

0001-Use-wildcard-for-pmOS_i-_boot.patch

I can flash the USB drive i'm using, it does a UEFI boot, but then (eventually, after saying "Booting 'postmarketOS'"), it shows an image and says "boot partition not found"

By Alexander James Clarke on 2021-05-21T17:42:27

it shows an image and says "boot partition not found"

This sounds like this postmarketos-mkinitfs patch you wrote is not being used:

--- a/main/postmarketos-mkinitfs/init_functions.sh
+++ b/main/postmarketos-mkinitfs/init_functions.sh
@@ -162,7 +162,7 @@ find_boot_partition() {
 		echo "${x#pmos_boot=}"
 		return
 	done
-	findfs LABEL="pmOS_inst_boot" || findfs LABEL="pmOS_boot"
+	findfs LABEL="pmOS_inst_boot" || findfs LABEL="pmOS_i_boot" || findfs LABEL="pmOS_boot"
 }

I assume, the postmarketos-mkinitfs package was not built - is that the case?

Increase the pkgrel in main/postmarketos-mkinitfs/APKBUILD, then do:

$ pmbootstrap checksum postmarketos-mkinitfs
$ pmbootstrap build postmarketos-mkinitfs

For postmarketos-ondev, use pmbootstrap build --src:

https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/On-device_installer#postmarketos-ondev

In the pmbootstrap log (saved to ~/.local/var/pmbootstrap/log.txt) you can verify that pmbootstrap is installing the correct packages. Consider renaming/deleting that log.txt before starting a new pmbootstrap install and then verify the version numbers of postmarketos-mkinitfs and postmarketos-ondev.

Some additional thoughts:

You did discover a bug and it is definitively worth fixing it. But I'm wondering what you are trying to do exactly - the on-device installer will give you a UI with these installation dialogs to encrypt your device etc. But as you are creating your own image with pmbootstrap anyway, you can already do all these customizations with pmbootstrap. For example, pmbootstrap install --fde will enable full disk encryption. So if you just want to install postmarketOS to your tablet, this is the faster route The on-device installer is most-useful for the pre-built images on the postmarketOS downloads page, so people can do these customizations without building their own image.
The on-device installer has only been tested on a couple of different devices. It might be that it needs further fixing to work on your x64 UEFI device.

By Oliver Smith on 2021-05-23T10:14:54

Well, my patches probably work, i mean i got at least part way through the ondev installer before i realised what you said, i'll try again once my micro SD card gets here in the mail (120MB/s is probably better to boot from than 2.5MB/s, right?), i probably won't need to use ondev but if it works, then it works!

By Alexander James Clarke on 2021-05-23T21:26:24

Hi. I've been trying to replicate this on another device, the Acer Aspire Switch 10 (I've been working with the generic uefi x86 device, given that it boots from a usb without the --ondev parameter just fine). I applied the patches (the last one did not apply because the relevant section of code had been moved around, I compensated for that)

I can prove that the pmbootstrap patches applied correctly simply because of the way the boot partition ends up being named. I run into the same issue as @AlexBigCheese with the boot partition not being found.

I am at a loss as to how to debug this: I tried to check the pmbootstrap log and it shows as the right pkgrel being installed. I then inspected the usb flash drive's pmOS_i_boot partition, especially the initfs. Inside it I find the patched shell script, so the package seems to get built and land on the usb. I then tried to have it show another of the splash images upon not finding the partition by doing this hack:

 mount_boot_partition() {
        partition=$(find_boot_partition)
        if [ -z "$partition" ]; then
                echo "ERROR: boot partition not found!"
-               show_splash /splash-noboot.ppm.gz
+               show_splash /splash-noinitramfsextra.ppm.gz # /splash-noboot.ppm.gz
                loop_forever
        fi

I can see the change landing on the usb as well, but the same image still shows. Do you people have any good ideas as how to debug this?

By Théo Friberg on 2021-07-04T22:17:58

NVM, I seem to have had a broken install of postmarketos on the internal emmc interfering with the boot process. Now it does work with your patches.

By Théo Friberg on 2021-07-11T11:57:30

0001-Use-wildcard-for-pmOS_i-_boot.patch uses tune2fs to rename the partition. This assumes that the partition is ext, and with FAT16 Calamares dies with the message in the image:

By Théo Friberg on 2021-07-11T14:00:41

mentioned in merge request !2083 (merged)

By Oliver Smith on 2021-07-11T21:15:20

This issue will be solved with the following 2 MRs. You can already run them if you check out the branches:

By Oliver Smith on 2021-07-11T21:15:39

Closing the pmbootstrap issue while merging the MR; to get the installation fully working, this also needs to be resolved (help wanted): https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/postmarketos-ondev/-/issues/51

By Oliver Smith on 2021-07-13T17:58:31

closed

Failure to label a fat16 partition as pmOS_inst_boot using ondev

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