[coreboot] GRUB 2 is a great payload!

[Alexandru Gagniuc]

On Monday, April 06, 2015 11:22:18 PM Paul Menzel wrote:
> Dear Alexandru,
> 
> Am Montag, den 06.04.2015, 14:07 -0700 schrieb Alexandru Gagniuc:
> > On Monday, April 06, 2015 10:46:32 PM Paul Menzel wrote:
> > > Am Donnerstag, den 26.03.2015, 11:54 -0700 schrieb Alexandru Gagniuc:
> > > > On Thursday, March 26, 2015 07:53:04 AM Paul Menzel wrote:
> > > > > The file is now 578K big and in CBFS the compressed size is a little
> > > > > over 200 KB.
> > > > 
> > > > I never understood how grub2 can do less than seabios but be much
> > > > larger.
> > > > OK, you caught me! grub2 can read files off a disk.
> > > 
> > > So I don’t know where this GRUB bashing
> > 
> > Bashing? For noticing that GRUB is larger than SeaBIOS?
> 
> Then I misunderstood/misinterpreted: “… how grub2 can do less than
> seabios …”.
> 
I meant "how much it actually does", not "how much it is capable of doing". I 
doubt you boot from USB all day long.

> > > And the cherry on top: If you don’t need a functionality, for example in
> > > production after development, most of it is provided through modules.
> > 
> > Sure. You can trim off some of the fat. If you know how to trim enough so
> > that it's comparable in size to SeaBIOS, please let me know.
> 
> I will.
> 
I'm not geek enough to build GRUB2. Last time I did it, I was telepathically 
controlled by Vladimir via IRC.

> Please let me understand your point better. I don’t see, why that size
> difference is a problem?
> 
This shouldn't even be questioned. Smaller is always better. Anyhow, the big 
issue is when you're running normal/fallback.

> Do you have a system where a 200 kB GRUB payload doesn’t fit?

I've had this issue on many occasions. Since I've gotten rid of MRC.bin on 
butterfly, I've been able to do SeaBIOS/Grub2 fallback/normal. Might need a bit 
of trimming to get to grub2/grub2.

> Did you
> measure any speed differences? (But as stated, SeaBIOS loads/starts GRUB
> most of the time from the a storage medium.)
> 
SeaBIOS, GRUB, or SeaBIOS + GRUB has always been fast for me. It's software 
that just works 99.99% of the time.

> 
> Thanks,
Alex