32 bit UEFI

[Steve Langasek]

On Thu, Jan 09, 2014 at 06:28:28PM +0000, Dimitri John Ledkov wrote:
> Does .iso / El Torito format of installation media makes any sense for
> machines that are a decade old?
> As far as I understand, all machines from a decade ago should be able
> to boot off usb sticks.

Aside from Phillip's data point, I'll say that the older machines are, the
more likely they are to require CDs for booting (instead of USB); so any
changes we would make to images with the intention of supporting old/new
machines differently should be done with this in mind.  I.e., we already
support hybrid ISOs today that work on the vast majority of machines; if
we're trying to preserve support for older systems with broken BIOSes, it
doesn't make sense to do this by replacing El Torito support with USB-only
booting.

We could conceivably add *only* USB boot support for 32-bit UEFI, without
adding El Torito support, if that's what you mean.  If we don't think we
need to boot optical media on new 32-bit UEFI systems, which seems probable,
then that combination would be maximally compatible.  How easy is it to put
together such an image?  I guess in theory it should be the same as a
regular hybrid image, without the embedded FAT filesystem being registered
in the boot catalog?

> BTW is there a 32-bit signed-shim available?

Not at this point, no.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org
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