Feature #9381: Ship an amd64 syslinux binary in the ISO

Feature #9381

Ship an amd64 syslinux binary in the ISO

Added by Anonymous 2015-05-12 10:08:35 . Updated 2015-08-11 10:47:10 .

Status:

Resolved

Priority:

Normal

Assignee:

Category:

Target version:

Tails_1.5

Start date:

2015-06-18

Due date:

% Done:

100%

Feature Branch:

feature/9381-ship-amd64-syslinux

Type of work:

Code

Blueprint:

Starter:

Affected tool:

Installer

Deliverable for:

Description

Ship an amd64 syslinux binary in the ISO, otherwise Tails Installer will only work on 32-bit systems.

Subtasks

Feature #9609: Have Tails Installer use syslinux-amd64 on amd64 platforms

Resolved

100

Related issues

Related to Tails - ~~Feature #9421~~: Upgrade the overlayfs branch to Linux 4.x	Resolved	2015-05-18
Related to Tails - ~~Bug #9748~~: apt.feature fails in the 1.5 devel branch with "No space left on device"	Resolved	2015-07-16

History

#1 Updated by Anonymous 2015-05-12 10:09:20

Status changed from New to Confirmed

#2 Updated by Anonymous 2015-06-08 14:47:42

Is it sufficient to delete/extend the safeguards in

config/binary_local-hooks/40-include_syslinux_in_ISO_filesystem and
config/binary_local-hooks/20-syslinux_detect_cpu
for this binary to be included?

#3 Updated by intrigeri 2015-06-08 16:40:12

> Is it sufficient to delete/extend the safeguards in
> * config/binary_local-hooks/40-include_syslinux_in_ISO_filesystem and
> * config/binary_local-hooks/20-syslinux_detect_cpu
> for this binary to be included?

Unfortunately, no: these safeguards are about the architecture the ISO is being built from (and so far we never build for anything else than i386, so currently they’re not very useful TBH).

Now, I realize that working on this task requires a deep understanding of the Tails ISO build system, and even with such skills (that I hereby boast to have), it’s not an easy one at all. IIRC it wasn’t obvious, when you volunteered to tackle ~~Feature #8556~~, that such skills would be needed, so perhaps someone else (I guess that would be me) should take care of it. Would you be fine with it? I can’t promise I’ll do it fast, but it’s not blocking anything except testing on Debian amd64, right? And the rest of the coding work can be tested on Debian i386.

#4 Updated by Anonymous 2015-06-08 16:53:17

Assignee set to intrigeri

Hi intrigeri,

that’s what I feared when I started researching this :(

I would absolutely be fine if you could take this off my plate as I am not sure that I can understand the build system this fast :)

And indeed, it’s not blocking anything right now. I can test on another machine.
Reassigning the ticket to you then.

Cheers!

#5 Updated by intrigeri 2015-06-09 07:10:17

OK. I doubt the required changes will qualify for a point-release, but still keeping target version = 1.4.1 because I’d like to make some progress on it this month.

#6 Updated by intrigeri 2015-06-12 11:18:07

related to ~~Feature #9421~~: Upgrade the overlayfs branch to Linux 4.x added

#7 Updated by intrigeri 2015-06-12 11:58:56

Status changed from Confirmed to In Progress
% Done changed from 0 to 10

The feature/multiarch branch makes the amd64 APT sources available (and supposedly, usable) in the chroot during the build process. This should ease a lot implementing this task.

#8 Updated by intrigeri 2015-06-12 15:46:04

Applied in changeset commit:e1d331aa9a06b4a115f9f2aee713ea6a40d3e3d8.

#9 Updated by intrigeri 2015-06-12 15:50:38

Assignee deleted (~~intrigeri~~)
Target version changed from Tails_1.4.1 to Tails_1.5
% Done changed from 10 to 50
QA Check set to Ready for QA

#10 Updated by intrigeri 2015-06-12 15:51:04

Feature Branch set to feature/9381-ship-amd64-syslinux

#11 Updated by intrigeri 2015-06-12 15:58:42

Assignee deleted (~~None~~)

Assigning to u. so that she can validate it on Debian amd64 Jessie or sid. See the pull request on tails-dev@ for details. Once done, if it works please reassign to nobody (and make -dev@ aware that the next steps of the review can be done); if it doesn’t work, well, reassign to me with debugging details :)

#12 Updated by Anonymous 2015-06-15 12:31:12

thanks intrigeri. if this gets merged, will i be able to get an ISO from the nightly builds? I do not have an own build environment.

#13 Updated by intrigeri 2015-06-16 00:53:52

> if this gets merged, will i be able to get an ISO from the nightly builds?

Yes, and actually the nightly builds from the experimental branch already have it. See my pull request on -dev@ for details.

#14 Updated by Anonymous 2015-06-16 05:37:08

as said on tails-dev, I’ve tested this in Debian Jessie, modifying line 1008 of /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/liveusb/creator.py from the feature/jessie branch and the latest experimental ISO and I could upgrade my existing USB device installation from 1.4 to 1.5.