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

[Christopher Obbard]

Hi,

On Sun, 2026-04-19 at 18:45 +0100, Christopher Obbard wrote:
> 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.

Just mentioning that https://github.com/go-debos/fakemachine/pull/298 was merged upstream and will
be in the next fakemachine/debos release, probably in the next couple of months.


Cheers!

Chris