Bug#422794: Starting is impossible

[Otavio Salvador]

Robert Millan <rmh at aybabtu.com> writes:

> On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 05:22:43PM -0300, Otavio Salvador wrote:
>> Robert Millan <rmh at aybabtu.com> writes:
>> 
>> >> Please do not perform update-grub compulsorily by postinst. It is very 
>> >> unpleasant to overwrite grub.cfg freely.
>> >
>> > I suppose it doesn't harm to add an option to disable it; perhaps we could
>> > even reuse /etc/kernel-img.conf.  Could you file a separate bug for this?
>> 
>> IMO, /etc/defaults/grub looks like a better place for this setting. We
>> can source it and check for:
>> 
>> if [ "x$AUTORUN_UPDATE_GRUB" = "xyes" ]; then
>>     ...
>> fi
>
> But that is an upstream file.  Do you think it's feasible to add a variable that
> the upstream scripts don't use?

Well, on this specific case there's no problem since this would only
be use by Debian's postinst. See bellow...

> Also, after thinking about it, I'm concerned that if we allow disabling autorun
> of update-grub, we won't be able to support changes in the grub.cfg
> specification sanely (e.g. users will update grub without updating grub.cfg
> and break their systems).  Also, we will receive less input from new features
> that *are* intended to be default, and so have less chances to fix them if
> they're buggy (like here).  And note that users are already able to add their
> custom stuff via /etc/grub.d, just not remove the base lines.

Yes, that makes sense and I agree that the cons can be bigger then the pros.

> I propose that we add a variable to select terminal, so that user can disable
> this feature altogether if he wants.  Jonny, does that work for you?

While I ack that we ought to offer this option I also think we need to
solve the user bug or at least identify the real reason behind it to
start allowing to disable it.

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