Bug#425648: 100% reproducible grub-install hang when run in x86_64 qemu

[Joey Hess]

Package: grub
Version: 0.97-28
Severity: normal
Tags: d-i

To reproduce this hang:

qemu-system-x86_64 -cdrom debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso -hda disk -boot d

Go through the install process to the grub install stage (I choose the
partition layout with separate /boot and /home, but I doubt it matters).
It will hang on 'grub-install (hd0)', apparently forever (I've waited up
to 4 hours for it IIRC). This is at the point where grub-install says
"Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.".

I have seen the hang when running qemu on 2 amd64 host systems:

Linux hydra 2.6.20-1-amd64 #1 SMP Tue Apr 24 21:10:58 UTC 2007 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Linux bluebird 2.6.16.29-xen #3 SMP Sun Oct 15 13:15:34 BST 2006 86_64 GNU/Linux

As well as on my laptop:

Linux kodama 2.6.20-1-686 #1 SMP Tue Apr 24 21:52:11 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

I am not using kqemu on the amd64s (seems to be unstable). I'm using
qemu version 0.9.0-[12]. I also was able to try kvm on hydra, and I do
not see the problem there.

I don't know if this is a qemu, kernel, or grub problem, really.
However, is seems similar to hangs in the same place that users
occasionally report when installing to real hardware.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.20-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages grub depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.5-7      GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libncurses5                   5.5-5      Shared libraries for terminal hand

grub recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

-- 
see shy jo
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