[coreboot] GRUB 2 is a great payload! (was: GRUB2 is too big as a payload in ThinkPad X201)

[Alexandru Gagniuc]

On Monday, April 06, 2015 10:46:32 PM Paul Menzel wrote:
> Dear Alexandru,
> 
> 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?

> Some more great features and modules:
> 
> 1. GRUB gives you a command line interface. The time-out can be set to 0.
> 2. Debugging with lspci, lsacpi, setpci, …
> 3. Instrumentation with boottime, cacheinfo, …
> 4. Show CBMEM console with `cbmemc`.
> 5. Show CBMEM time stamps with `coreboot_boottime`.
> 6. Support for coreboot systems with native graphics support.
> 
I know very well what GRUB2 is capable of.

> 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.

> So big thank you to the GRUB developers, especially Vladimir
> φ-coder/phcoder for their work and support.
>
Thanks, Vladimir!
 
> Also big thank you to all other payload developers. Especially to Kevin
> for working on SeaBIOS, which fulfills its use case awesomely well, and
> for being always responsive and helpful.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
Alex