[pkg-go] Bug#1070762: debos: unhelpful error message "Modules path couldn't be determined"

[Christopher Obbard]

Control: forwarded -1 https://github.com/go-debos/fakemachine/pull/298
Control: subscribe -1 obbardc at debian.org

Hi Helmut,

On Wed, 8 May 2024 17:59:08 +0200 Helmut Grohne <helmut at subdivi.de> wrote:
> I was trying to use debos and all that it told me was:
> 
> | Modules path couldn't be determined
> 
> This is not helpful. After digging into code I eventually figured that
> when it says "modules" it measn "Linux kernel modules". This is not
> evident from the context. Moreoever, it eventually became clear that the
> module it was missing was 9pnet_virtio. If that name had been included
> in the error message, it would have been immediately obvious to me that
> the cause was using a -cloud kernel as -cloud kernels lack 9p
> functionality (see #955232). While debos recommends a non-cloud kernel
> and the non-cloud kernel even got installed, the additional presence of
> a -cloud kernel image meant that grub would prefer booting that.
> 
> I hope this is sufficient reason to improve the error message. Thanks
> for considering.


Thanks for reporting and sorry for the delay. I've just managed to get some
time to do some triage on this package.

You're right. That's a pretty useless error message! I've proposed a patch upstream
to make the error more verbose: https://github.com/go-debos/fakemachine/pull/298

The error will read something like: "fakemachine: kernel module '9p' not found for kernel '6.19.12+deb14-amd64'"

It will trickle down eventually into debian once it is merged.


Cheers!

Chris