Bug#495049: grub-pc: does not boot because module "normal" is not loaded

[ian_bruce at fastmail.fm]

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:20:53 +0200
Felix Zielcke <fzielcke at z-51.de> wrote:

> > After running "grub-install" and rebooting, grub drops into the
> > "grub rescue>" prompt. The "pc", "lvm", and "ext2" modules are loaded,
> > "ls" finds the root volume, and the variable "root" is set 
> > appropriately.
> 
> Only the variable root or the prefix too?

Both.

> Are sure that if you boot you only type
> 
> insmod normal
> normal
> 
> and then the menu shows? i.e. nothing before like set prefix or set
> root?

Only those two commands. Nothing else.

> That would be very weird if GRUB set it's variables right, but still
> fails to load grub.cfg by it's own.
> 
> fz at fz:~$ strings /boot/grub/core.img|grep normal
> fz at fz:~$ 

    # strings /boot/grub/normal.mod | grep grub.cfg
    %s/grub.cfg
    # 

The reason it doesn't load grub.cfg is because that filename is only found
in the "normal" module, which as I said, doesn't get loaded automatically,
but is located without problem with the "insmod" command.

> I think that core.img doestn't contain the string `normal' is just well
> normal, grub2 works fine for me, but I don't have LVM or RAID ;)

I don't know how the "normal" module is supposed to get loaded, but it's
clear that it IS supposed to, and that it isn't happening here.

I don't know if the problem is related to lvm, or if it's specific to AMD64,
or what.