[coreboot] [GSoC 2016] ROM-O-Matic project

[ron minnich]

On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 4:16 AM Yurii Shevtsov <ungetch at gmail.com> wrote:

> I looked at sites you mentioned. I haven't any configuration feature on
> johnlewis.ie Instead it provides an instruction for running special shell
> script. But I much more liked original Rom-o-matic. I want do develop same
> thing, but with fancier design, if you mind) I have more questions:
>
> How important this project for coreboot community is?
>

well, that's a tough question. Back in 2000 when we first did it, it was
very important. At this point, coreboot is mostly two user communities:
people who use it and don't know and don't care (chromebooks); and people
who are dedicated hackers and know the insides so well they don't need
rom-o-matic. Those who don't know anything and don't care they're using
coreboot probably outnumber knowledgable people by about 10,000 to 1 at
least [based on the 10m+ systems shipped at this point with coreboot, and
my guess that the coreboot hacker community is unlikely to be as many as
1000 people).

The number of people who don't know anything and can use a rom-o-matic is
probably numbered in single digits, because even to use rom-o-matic you
have to be knowledgable enough that you might as well build your own
coreboot. You certainly have to have a path out if something goes wrong,
and at that point you are cracking open your laptop. A failed coreboot
install is not like a failed OS install. It's more like destroying your
mainboard.

I hate to be discouraging but my guess is at present that what john lewis
is doing is probably as much as is needed.


Do I have to fix some bugs or make any other sort of contribution, before
> submitting my proposal?
>

You should show that you know how to build and use coreboot from scratch.
It makes no sense to talk about rom-o-matic otherwise.


> Do you have a proposal template or some special requirments for it?
> What do you think about nodejs, as a backend?
>


I suspect you know far more about writing such a tool than I ever will, but
far less about coreboot than you need to know. Your first step should be to
get it, build it, and boot it in qemu; bonus points for doing it on real
hardware.

I think the choice of node.js is not nearly as important as ensuing you
give people images that won't brick their machine.

ron
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