Submarine (bootloader)

[arkadin91]

Hello.

I have a question, has anyone tried to build an image of Ubuntu, Debian, Archlinux etc. To run it from submarine and creating efi and root partitions only? I know it's not in line with what you've created. But it's a simpler way (at least for me) and, above all, it works, in my chromebook, i.e. Lenovo 10e (google-kukui-kodama) everything works perfectly. Firmware and kernel from PostmarketOS. For Debian distributions I use Debos.

[thenameisluk]

@arkadin91 i'm not aware of any real attempts only one discussion being open #242 (comment) .

for me the default bootloader is simple you just build kernel partition image with kernel using one command (vtbuild) and flash it either as permanent boot (vtflash) or one time boot (vttest) if you want to test it

if you want you can play around with it but you will have to know how submarine works

[arkadin91]

@arkadin91 i'm not aware of any real attempts only one discussion being open #242 (comment) .

for me the default bootloader is simple you just build kernel partition image with kernel using one command (vtbuild) and flash it either as permanent boot (vtflash) or one time boot (vttest) if you want to test it

if you want you can play around with it but you will have to know how submarine works

I just figured out how it works, by running the distribution on a Chromebook via VT and also via DeepTcharge. Maybe no one is interested in the Submarine topic, or isn't writing about it. It's been working for me for a few months now with Ubuntu 26.04.

P.S. I see some people in Poland are doing similar things 😉

[hexdump0815]

@arkadin91 - thanks a lot for this feedback - i'm aware of submarine, but i'm currently not seing any pressure to move towards it for two reasons:

• i think it only supports a few devices and i prefer to keep the same approach for booting a common group of devices (all aarch64 chromebooks in this case)
• the depthcharge approach we currently use seems to work quite well (even more so since we are using the velvet-tools) for most people and changing it would require quite a bit of effort and tresting without any major benefit ... also there are less preparations required to use the default depthcahrge booting

that said, please add any more information regarding this topic to this issue here as it might be interesting for others who want to play around with it - i see velvet-os also as a platform to start own experiments from :)

[arkadin91]

@arkadin91 - thanks a lot for this feedback - i'm aware of submarine, but i'm currently not seing any pressure to move towards it for two reasons:

• i think it only supports a few devices and i prefer to keep the same approach for booting a common group of devices (all aarch64 chromebooks in this case)
• the depthcharge approach we currently use seems to work quite well (even more so since we are using the velvet-tools) for most people and changing it would require quite a bit of effort and tresting without any major benefit ... also there are less preparations required to use the default depthcahrge booting

that said, please add any more information regarding this topic to this issue here as it might be interesting for others who want to play around with it - i see velvet-os also as a platform to start own experiments from :)

I'm testing it on my chromebook for now, as far as I know, it works in the aarch64 chromebook. The partition layout is EFI only and Root in ext4 format. And for the submarine 128mb, which has a set flag for the chromebook to run from it. For me, it's a more convenient option, it works with any linux distribution. Out of pure curiosity, it started with tests for me, in the subject of submarine, what information would you need?

[PastorCatto]

Hi! I also am very curious to this as well, as arkadin91 and i have been collaborating on bringing Ubuntu to phones and more ARM64 based Devices (Non-PC Non-UEFI style) and honestly, would be super simple to incorperate into our build process (i have placeholders for now, wanted to reach out and see what the whole Ubuntu Status is)

with arkadin91's fixes for a more universal Linux distro setup, would be a seamless integration (hoping i dont jinx it haha!)

also is the coreOS Nix? or something similar?

[thenameisluk]

i mean the velvet tools should works on ubuntu if that's what you care about, we dropped ubuntu because it was a burden to keep up with new kernel config options it need enables with every version

also there is nothing preventing velvet tools from working on other distributions except the packaging (.rpm or PKGBUILD or whatever else) and adding hooks to whatever tool the distro uses to generate initramfs

[hexdump0815]

@PastorCatto - regarding ubuntu: the basics are still there, its just that we do not have the time to keep it going and develop it forward plus test all this on a variety of systems - if someone would reliably take over those topics and take over the responsibility to maintain it in the future, i would say we would be fine to incorporate properly tested prs to bring it back after a while of testing