Debian bug #463123 still hurts me

[Robert Millan]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 05:07:13PM -0400, Theodore Tso wrote:
> 
> I wonder if there is an easy way to tell if the bootloader installed
> in the MBR (or in the first active boot partition, if you have the DOS
> MBR installed in /dev/hda ) is capable of supporting 256 byte ext2/3/4
> inodes.

Version tracking could make sense, for this and for other bugs like #451701,
but:

  a) Maintaining that information is a lot of work;  it's out of the question
     to do it without upstream support (and even then, I'm reluctant).

  b) Cannot be done retroactively anyway.

GRUB 2 paliates this problem by using modules, so you can test for certain
features by test -e /boot/grub/foo.mod.  But that wouldn't address this
particular problem either.

Sorry that I can't be of more help.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."