Packaging/Consolidation

WIP: notes on packaging/image reorg.

Goals

• Simplify support by building a single GalliumOS distribution image: galliumos-xenon-2.1.iso
  • Currently shipping six hardware-specific images
    • baytrail, broadwell, broadwell-cbox, haswell, haswell-cbox, sandy
  • Will add two to four more soon:
    • braswell, skylake, possibly samus and/or hidpi
  • Only should be required for the iso. We can do any installed system stuff during installation and never think about it again at boot.

Prerequisites

• Consolidate existing hardware-specific GalliumOS packages into a single package
  • (or possibly merge them all into galliumos-core and galliumos-desktop)

Issues

• All customization in packages must be done at (first?) boot, not package install time
  • Booting from the Live Image must be customized for the model
  • Images are built on a single machince (VM, non-GalliumOS)
• Some customizations must be in place early in the boot process
  • Where not possible, they can be configured for the next boot (not useful for Live Image boot)

Customizations

Categories

1. kernel and kernel modules, e.g.:
   • /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi-opts.conf
2. systemd config, e.g.:
   • /lib/systemd/system-sleep/wifi.sh
3. services config, e.g.:
   • /etc/pulse/default.pa
4. user config, e.g.:
   • /etc/skel/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml

Limitations

• All images must boot a single kernel
  • Maybe not - We can have a GRUB menu to select an appropriate kernel for device class. Also thought of a way of detecting the device and selecting the correct kernel, maybe kexec?

Methods

Detection

• Model detection via dmidecode -s system-product-name
  • Peppy
• CPU detection via dmidecode -s processor-version as fallback
  • Intel(R) Celeron(R) 2955U @ 1.40GHz
• Display resolution detection for selecting HiDPI pkg?
  • Some models (YUNA) ship with identical CPU (3205U) for both 1366x and 1920x displays
  • Can't detect by the usual methods (xdpyinfo, xrandr) in early boot -- no X server running

Process

• A systemd one-shot could set config files before reaching an early target
  • Existing galliumos-laptop service does some model detection, but it is late in the boot
  • Should work well for Customization categories #3 and #4; might work for #2, probably can't work for #1.
    • should work for #2, with systemctl daemon-reload
  • Configurator could detect user-changed files by timestamp and checksum
    • What to do if there is a newer GalliumOS update?
• A kernel module that loaded early could handle everything necessary (except kernel selection)
  • Yikes