On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 6:45 pm, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson <johannbg@gmail.com> wrote:

sd-boot

I think the bootloader war is more or less lost to GRUB2. Since sd-boot doesn't support BIOS systems -- and probably many more things we need, I'm not an expert -- and we want to continue supporting BIOS, and we also don't want to have to support multiple bootloaders, I see sd-boot as something for advanced users to configure for themselves rather than something we can teach anaconda to use.

This is not a "bootloader war" so it cant be won or lost and we already are supporting multiple bootloaders being used in the distribution and legacy bios ain't going away anytime soon.

What came out of that thread ( which I was planning on summarize when I found the time and do a proper official proposal ) is basically

Do as Javier mentioned.

"Just like Anaconda currently provides an extlinux option to use as the bootloader instead of GRUB for legacy BIOS installs, a sd-boot option could be added to choose using this bootloader for EFI installs."

With an system wide goal of working toward what Lennart mention as in standardize on the boot loader spec.

Work towards fixing the sad state of UEFI in our virtualization stack which Daniel mentioned and other relevant areas that need fixing in UEFI ( I would say try to be done with that no later then 2022 )

Then there was an unanswered question how long we should be supporting hardware.

If I google "how long are computer supported" ( YMMV these days ) I get

"For most desktop PCs, a minimum three-year lifespan should be expected. However, most computers survive anywhere from five to eight years" then in what 2023 legacy bios support could be safely dropped.

In anycase the distribution needs to settle on a number ( whatever that number might be ) so end users and developers ( think: we have to support this for so and so years before we can remove it ) expectation can be adjusted accordingly.

JBG