let's have a place to document breaking changes

NEWS

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+A brief guide to backward-incompatible changes
+that are likely to break configurations or workflows
+
+2023-12-10
+
+* configurations (usually) need no longer import modules from
+modules/outputs because devices are expected to do this instead. This
+change is because the outputs that make sense in any given context are
+usually a property of the device being installed onto.
+
+2023-12-11
+
+* rename outputs.flashimage to outputs.mtdimage (and also diskimage to
+mbrimage). This change is made in the expectation that "fooimage" is
+the name of an outputs that gloms together other filesystem-like
+outputs with some kind of partition table - so we might in future have
+gptimage or lvmimage or ubimage.
+
+
+

THOUGHTS.txt

@@ -3418,3 +3418,40 @@ device tree" (or alternatively, "we need a static dtb, platform doesn't
 provide it").
 
 config.boot.platformProvidesDeviceTree
+
+
+
+Monday
+
+so where are we? we've removed the need for every hardware device to
+be able to build flashimage, because not every hw device (looking at you,
+bellkin/turris) works like that.
+
+for the belkin we can have imports = [ modules/outputs/ubimage ]
+and extlinux enabled
+
+for the nwa from Raito we'd like to have imports = [ modules/outputs/ubimage ]
+but the bootloader is mtd partition-based (or ubi volume? check?) -
+so ubimage needs to know how to do that
+
+perhaps we need an output for "smash together a kernel and a
+filesystem image that does not also contain a kernel, and don't
+put a partition table on the front"
+
+diskimage {
+  partitionType = "mtd" ;  # or "mbr" or maybe "gpt"
+  partitions = [ o.uimage o.rootfs ];
+}
+    
+
+
+
+for the turris we need to check but proceeding on the assumption
+it wants a tarball with extlinux enabled 
+
+https://docs.turris.cz/geek/schnapps/schnapps/#export-and-import
+https://wiki.turris.cz/en/howto/omnia_booting_from_external_storage
+
+if we adopt this as our installation format then we are not
+reformatting the flash and will keep the btrfs that the device
+was shipped with. 

ci.nix

@@ -8,21 +8,20 @@ let
   pkgs = (import nixpkgs {});
   borderVmConf =  ./bordervm.conf-example.nix;
   inherit (pkgs.lib.attrsets) genAttrs;
-  devices = {
-    virt = [ "qemu" "qemu-aarch64" "qemu-armv7l" ];
-    hw = [ "gl-ar750" "gl-mt300n-v2" "gl-mt300a"  ];
-  };
+  devices = [
+    "gl-ar750" "gl-mt300n-v2" "gl-mt300a"
+    "qemu" "qemu-aarch64" "qemu-armv7l"
+  ];
   vanilla = ./vanilla-configuration.nix;
-  for-device = cfg: name:
+  for-device = name:
     (import liminix {
       inherit nixpkgs borderVmConf;
       device = import (liminix + "/devices/${name}");
-      liminix-config = cfg;
+      liminix-config = vanilla;
     }).outputs.default;
   tests = import ./tests/ci.nix;
   jobs =
-    (genAttrs devices.hw (name: for-device ./vanilla-configuration-hw.nix name)) //
-    (genAttrs devices.virt (name: for-device vanilla name)) //
+    (genAttrs devices for-device) //
     tests //
     {
       buildEnv = (import liminix {
@@ -41,7 +40,7 @@ let
               }).outputs.optionsJson;
             installers = map (f: "system.outputs.${f}") [
               "vmroot"
-              "flashimage"
+              "mtdimage"
               "ubimage"
             ];
             inherit (pkgs.lib) concatStringsSep;

devices/gl-ar750/default.nix

@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
 
     As with many GL.iNet devices, the stock vendor firmware
     is a fork of OpenWrt, meaning that the binary created by
-    :ref:`system-outputs-flashimage` can be flashed using the
+    :ref:`system-outputs-mtdimage` can be flashed using the
     vendor web UI or the U-Boot emergency "unbrick" routine.
 
     For flashing from an existing Liminix system (we believe that) it
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@
         ../../modules/network
         ../../modules/arch/mipseb.nix
         ../../modules/outputs/tftpboot.nix
-        ../../modules/outputs/flashimage.nix
+        ../../modules/outputs/mtdimage.nix
         ../../modules/outputs/jffs2.nix
       ];
 
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@
         FEATURE_DD_IBS_OBS = "y"; # ath10k_cal_data needs skip_bytes,fullblock
       };
       hardware = {
-        defaultOutput = "flashimage";
+        defaultOutput = "mtdimage";
         loadAddress = lim.parseInt "0x80060000";
         entryPoint = lim.parseInt "0x80060000";
         flash = {

devices/gl-mt300a/default.nix

@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
     ============
 
     The stock vendor firmware is a fork of OpenWrt, meaning that the
-    binary created by :ref:`system-outputs-flashimage` can be flashed
+    binary created by :ref:`system-outputs-mtdimage` can be flashed
     using the vendor web UI or the U-Boot emergency "unbrick" routine.
 
     For flashing from an existing Liminix system (we think) it
@@ -55,11 +55,11 @@
       imports = [
         ../../modules/arch/mipsel.nix
         ../../modules/outputs/tftpboot.nix
-        ../../modules/outputs/flashimage.nix
+        ../../modules/outputs/mtdimage.nix
         ../../modules/outputs/jffs2.nix
       ];
       hardware = {
-        defaultOutput = "flashimage";
+        defaultOutput = "mtdimage";
         loadAddress = lim.parseInt "0x80000000";
         entryPoint = lim.parseInt "0x80000000";
 

devices/gl-mt300n-v2/default.nix

@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
     ============
 
     The stock vendor firmware is a fork of OpenWrt, meaning that the
-    binary created by :ref:`system-outputs-flashimage` can be flashed
+    binary created by :ref:`system-outputs-mtdimage` can be flashed
     using the vendor web UI or the U-Boot emergency "unbrick" routine.
 
     For flashing from an existing Liminix system (we think) it
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
       imports = [
         ../../modules/arch/mipsel.nix
         ../../modules/outputs/tftpboot.nix
-        ../../modules/outputs/flashimage.nix
+        ../../modules/outputs/mtdimage.nix
         ../../modules/outputs/jffs2.nix
       ];
       filesystem = dir {
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@
         };
       };
       hardware = {
-        defaultOutput = "flashimage";
+        defaultOutput = "mtdimage";
         loadAddress = lim.parseInt "0x80000000";
         entryPoint = lim.parseInt "0x80000000";
 

devices/turris-omnia/default.nix

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
           imports = [
             ../../modules/arch/arm.nix
             ../modules/outputs/tftpboot.nix
-            ../modules/outputs/diskimage.nix
+            ../modules/outputs/mbrimage.nix
             ../modules/outputs/extlinux.nix
             ../modules/outputs/ext4fs.nix
           ];
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@
         klibBuild = config.system.outputs.kernel.modulesupport;
       };
       in {
-        defaultOutput = "flashimage";
+        defaultOutput = "mtdimage";
         loadAddress = lim.parseInt "0x00008000";
         entryPoint = lim.parseInt "0x00008000";
         rootDevice = "/dev/mtdblock0";

doc/development.rst

@@ -180,7 +180,7 @@ Now add the device and server IP addresses to your configuration:
   };
 
 and then build the derivation for ``outputs.default`` or
-``outputs.flashimage`` (for which it will be an alias on any device
+``outputs.mtdimage`` (for which it will be an alias on any device
 where this is applicable). You should find it has created
 
 * :file:`result/firmware.bin` which is the file you are going to flash

modules/all-modules.nix

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
    ./outputs.nix
    ./outputs/vmroot.nix
    ./outputs/ubimage.nix
-   ./outputs/flashimage.nix
+   ./outputs/mtdimage.nix
    ./ppp
    ./ramdisk.nix
    ./squashfs.nix

modules/hardware.nix

@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ in {
         };
       };
       defaultOutput = mkOption {
-        description = "\"Default\" output: what gets built for this device when outputs.default is requested. Typically this is \"flashimage\" or \"vmroot\"";
+        description = "\"Default\" output: what gets built for this device when outputs.default is requested. Typically this is \"mtdimage\" or \"vmroot\"";
         type = types.nonEmptyStr;
       };
       ram = {

modules/outputs/mbrimage.nix

@@ -9,12 +9,11 @@ let
   o = config.system.outputs;
   phram_address = lib.toHexString (config.hardware.ram.startAddress + 256 * 1024 * 1024);
 in {
-#  imports = [ ./flashimage.nix ];
   options.system.outputs = {
-    diskimage = mkOption {
+    mbrimage = mkOption {
       type = types.package;
       description = ''
-        diskimage
+        mbrimage
         *********
 
         This creates a disk image file with a partition table containing
@@ -26,10 +25,10 @@ in {
 
   config = {
     system.outputs = {
-      diskimage =
+      mbrimage =
         let
           o = config.system.outputs;
-        in pkgs.runCommand "diskimage" {
+        in pkgs.runCommand "mbrimage" {
           depsBuildBuild = [ pkgs.pkgsBuildBuild.util-linux ];
         } ''
           # leave 4 sectors at start for partition table
@@ -40,10 +39,10 @@ in {
       vmdisk = pkgs.runCommand "vmdisk" {} ''
         mkdir $out
         cd $out
-        ln -s ${o.diskimage} ./diskimage
+        ln -s ${o.mbrimage} ./mbrimage
         cat > run.sh <<EOF
         #!${pkgs.runtimeShell}
-        ${pkgs.pkgsBuildBuild.run-liminix-vm}/bin/run-liminix-vm  --arch ${pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.qemuArch} --u-boot ${pkgs.ubootQemuArm}/u-boot.bin --phram-address 0x${phram_address} --disk-image ${o.diskimage} /dev/null /dev/null
+        ${pkgs.pkgsBuildBuild.run-liminix-vm}/bin/run-liminix-vm  --arch ${pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.qemuArch} --u-boot ${pkgs.ubootQemuArm}/u-boot.bin --phram-address 0x${phram_address} --disk-image ${o.mbrimage} /dev/null /dev/null
         EOF
         chmod +x run.sh
       '';

modules/outputs/mtdimage.nix

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ in {
   options.system.outputs = {
     firmware = mkOption {
       type = types.package;
-      internal = true;          # component of flashimage
+      internal = true;          # component of mtdimage
       description = ''
         Binary image (combining kernel, FDT, rootfs, initramfs
         if needed, etc) for the target device.
@@ -19,16 +19,16 @@ in {
     };
     flash-scr = mkOption {
       type = types.package;
-      internal = true;          # component of flashimage
+      internal = true;          # component of mtdimage
       description = ''
         Copy-pastable U-Boot commands to TFTP download the
         image and write it to flash
       '';
     };
-    flashimage = mkOption {
+    mtdimage = mkOption {
       type = types.package;
       description = ''
-        flashimage
+        mtdimage
         **********
 
         This creates an image called :file:`firmware.bin` suitable for
@@ -80,10 +80,10 @@ in {
           dd if=${o.uimage} of=$out bs=${bs} conv=sync
           dd if=${o.rootfs} of=$out bs=${bs} conv=sync,nocreat,notrunc oflag=append
         '';
-      flashimage =
+      mtdimage =
         let o = config.system.outputs; in
         # could use trivial-builders.linkFarmFromDrvs here?
-        pkgs.runCommand "flashimage" {} ''
+        pkgs.runCommand "mtdimage" {} ''
           mkdir $out
           cd $out
           ln -s ${o.firmware} firmware.bin

vanilla-configuration-hw.nix

@@ -1,6 +0,0 @@
-{ ... }:
-{
-  imports = [
-    ./vanilla-configuration.nix
-  ];
-}